On working days we would ride high on the back of the truck
leaning over the cab and feeling as strong as we were, pulling
hard on our bodies to load and shovel, break and stack, it seemed
we could never run out, and on cold days we worked right through
lunch to hop off early before it got too dark, and my baby and me
we could go all night at the bar and then some. I played a little harp
and she could swing and dance and make her hair lift in halos,
the music was in her and out of her in ways that made me feel sometimes
like I was seeing the bright fire of creation, like God must have
when he made Eve, the world was at once dimmer in contrast and even
the darkness jumped, towards her and away again as the men lit
smokes and the lights swung from fixtures in the wind a body makes
as it moves, and she burned and burned all night and we boys
held our moth bodies near as we could, cashing in hour by hour
the day for another bottle in the hopes it would pass her lips,
and it did, and everyone always said I knew her like no one
else, I knew when she had had enough to drink, when to take
her home and when to stand aside and let her breathe fury
into the crowd. I knew she had inside her an anger which twisted
and pulled and caught itself up in the smoke and tar and
whiskey and heroin, they told me I knew her and I was there
when they brought my baby out in the black bag, so I guess I did.