The Summer My Son Painted the House

The summer
I insisted that my unemployed son
paint the house
he rattled up the ladder
arriving at all the windows at once
his swung pail clangouring
like anger in an orchard
and all that white paint tainted the panes
splashed the sill and
dashed at the brick
as he came swathing toward the sashes
like ledge pigeons
like rock gulls, like guano
at the cenotaph
like bird lime
on the hero's stony forehead in the park
oh, he was dutiful enough
to do it
but his disgruntlement at being forced
wept from his every pore like milk
and he was furious
his bristled arms whisked like dog wag, like sea splash
and when he came to me
wanting recompense
his white hands still wet
his body half-bleached 
as if he were slowly but surely 
becoming Master Blank
or as if he were an old soul becoming 'the boy'
face first . . . 
and looking much like
the son in the photograph album
the son on my desk dipped to the chin
in lilies
the one I loved
who isn't so angry
who when I sell this house some day
as one might sell
the brick of swans
the glaze of some fog-drowsy
window cleaner
smearing the glass with soap
in gone-dry splotches
that suffer the yard to blur
I also sell off little
tints of wrath—oh buyer
think of yourself as
Vincent's brother Theo
this mason's canvas as a living record
these windows
descended from angels
whose shoulders rubbed off a chalky beatitude
flying in, flying out
and my son was simply
tracing their journey
their sojourn lingering in frost

 
Why are Manholes Round

I play shinny
with the oldest man on ice
a shaky skater
an octogenarian wobbler
barely erect on shivery blades
he stands alone
frozen in place
like a thin-ice pylon
his stick like a bent cane
tapping a wooden code
avoid avoid avoid
and someone says
"draw a circle round him
see if he moves . . . " 

he's what you might call
without intent of flattery
"a stay at home defenseman"
for some say "he should stay at home"
but there he is always
tracing the varicose blue of the paint below ice
to the left-most half of himself
as if he were salting the line
to be sure of it there

and when others sweep past
saying "skate like the wind, not skate like you're winded"
down comes his shaft in their wake
with a chop to the ribs or the arms or the shins
down like a hospital parking-lot gate
on the trunk
or the hood
a move he denies
though it's feckless of hurt
as a blow from the willowy dead
 
once he was caught on film
tripping a fellow
with steel in both wrists
so his victim fell with a clank
and was slow to get up
as iron too heavy to lift from the pig
with both his brave knees
gone awonk

and still, dear Davey denied 
though he'd been seen on the ice
and caught by the camera
and watched and confirmed by the room
sweeping both feet following through
still he said, "that wasn't me!"
and, "I did not!"
like a felon red-handed in court.

I remember the night
he'd spent 
all day sledging a floor
so it cracked
into wedges of broken concrete
like a river's first thaw
which he lifted and wheeled
by himself in the ache of the hours
and still he came out to play
though his arms were dead as wet gravel
and his legs
were as weak as fat sand
yet he laced up his ankles
and walked like a three-legged chair

I suppose he might pass
through the thinnest of glaze
one night he'll capsize 
the ink of his blades
carving through
as a child on a pond
in the give of first cold
to go down
where the water won't freeze
and he'll skate like a fish
with his fins to the sky    under ice