Mr. Hiram Coley in His Office


We never say thank you, so I want to say it.  Thank you.
Thank you for coming in to share your 
(let’s not call them grievances) concerns.
If you had not mentioned it, I may not have noticed 
the shop floor does get a little bit dusty.  The shop
which I built from the ground up.  The shop
paid for with capital I earned when the members 
of your “workers’ committee” were still children.  

And the machines, as you rightly point out, 
can be dangerous. Thank you.  

                       Thank you for reminding me 
if a man comes into work half-drunk, half-hung over,
no more prepared to deliver an honest day’s labor
than a cripple, though I am still obligated
to pay him his full amount, if that man in his incapacity
should stick his hand into a turning loom, yes,
it will cut his fingers off.  It certainly will.  Thank you
for reminding me of that.  

                                 And while he screams
and carries on, distracting those who are not drunk,
those who care to actually earn the wages I pay them,
we will stop the loom, we will cease our labor,
we will search for his fingers on the floor, which, 
as you have brought to my attention, can be dusty.  Thank you.

Each man’s wages will be less, my profits lower,
our production down, not because this man
has the brain of a toddler, but because 
my machines are, as you so rightly remind me, 
dangerous.  And the shop floor can be dusty.
Anything else?





At the Mashauwomuk Club


We didn’t exclude anyone.
We just chose only those who belonged.
Blood knows blood.
You picked a new member
for the families he grew up around,
his boarding school, the places he summered.

If you found yourself having cocktails
with a member you barely knew,
you could drop a nautical term 
and he would get it.  By the second martini,
he’s telling you where he’s moored.

I remember Geordie Watson,
not young Geordie, old Geordie, the real Geordie.
The bones of that man’s face were an institution in themselves.
You could tell from the texture of his skin
he had put in his time on the water.

Old Geordie wasn’t mill money.
He was China-trade money, old capital, hoary capital,
the capital of reinvested returns.
Bit of a cold roast, but decent, you know?

Not that one values decency anymore.
Subtlety.  Manners.  The form of the thing.
Members used to linger over dinner, smoke 
between courses.  Understood the art of conversation.
I haven’t heard a decent toast since Robbie Thayer died.

Geordie went home, he said, to hear the surf beat the rocks.
Hired an Irishman to light the fire and carry out the rubbish.
I’m of a mind to follow his example.
There’s enough wine in my own cellar to last the term.
Enough books on my shelves to last the nights. 





Megan Flanagan


I dress to match her dining room drapes,
speak softly loud enough for her to hear,
know when to knock on a downstairs door.

I keep my cuffs and collars spotless.  When she bathes, 
I sponge her back, flesh dimpled and pink at the folds.
Wheel her to the study, wait as she reads.

I think I can hear her think.  Mam, I say.  
The fire, she says.  Coal in the grate balanced
in fragile cliffs, crimson-seamed and brilliant.





Her Weekend Home from Choate


Mr. Heller is raking the beach.
She can hear him comb 
the sand, the gritty scrape 
his rake makes,
cutting furrows in the private 
patch of sand between 
her parents’ house and his.

Closer now, Attorney Heller 
with his rake, cutting 
furrows with his teeth.
She should have worn 
a different suit, the one-piece.
She should have brought 
Clarissa, the Labrador retriever.

He is raking near 
her towel,
the tongs of his rake 
turning the hot sand,
prying up bits of litter, 
bits of cup and bits of rope.
The sand must be damp 
in the valleys of the furrows.

She can feel the damp 
with her dug-in fingers,
the hard damp 
beneath the dry loose grains.
She has known Mr. Heller 
all her life.
He is close to her towel, 
raking clean the sand.





Incunabulum


The pose is typical of the period.  
The father’s face, lit by a screen, turns toward us.  
His narrow eyes and thin lips, his brown brow 
are handsome but unsettled. The study’s drapes 
are opulent, his clothing casual, his features 
hungry.  One hand “rests” on the keyboard,
the other clenches his belt, its flesh stretched to whiteness.

His wife stands behind him, submissive, her face illumined
by her tablet.  We can’t see its display but we may guess
a domestic theme, a recipe or shopping site.
Her hair falls in a slack coil, too blond to be convincing.
Tastefully dressed, pretty to look at, she exists for her husband
as a decorative touch, his little bowl of flowers.

His daughter holds what was known as a smart phone,
her finger poised to tap a message.  We find in her features 
her father’s will but not his intellect, all his pride, none of his wits.  
Not yet in her teens - we can tell - this one will be trouble.
One can hardly bear to look at the boy.  He slumps on the floor
clutching his controller, a virtual motion device.

When we look at this picture, it’s important to forget
what we know.  If they remind us of the citizens of Pompeii
that’s our own perspective, not the artist’s.  
He meant to paint a gilded age.