​Plumber


He smacks the snow out of his hair: "Respect!"
His boots unclasped and flapping like a child's,
He kicks back in the hall to wipe them off.
"Six Fahrenheit!" Into his hand he coughs.
Then with a giant step he's in, erect.
"Plumber to play your pipes," he says and winks.
He played a flute once "that would drive girls wild."
"So what's wrong this time with your kitchen sink?"
"The toilet bowl won't work. I think it's stuffed.
"Use it for garbage, what do you expect?"
Before I can think of how to tease him back,
He drops down to his knees, a candle snuffed.
I put a record on: Heifetz playing Brahms.
He exits from the bathroom, his eyes closed,
Hands closed, a choir boy humming psalms.
When the record ends, he blinks his dream away.
"You should have heard the way I used to play,"
He says and shakes his head until he smacks
His thigh to stop. "I used to practice five
Hours a day. At fourteen ... Never mind."
He looks at his hand. "Thank God I'm alive."
I follow him in. He twists a monkey-wrench
In mock-flourish up in the air, then draws
It hard against a pipe like a fiddle-bow,
Then holds his nose: the playing or the stench?
He answers my look: "This was the cause."
He shows his hand -- deformed a little, scarred.
"The War. Poland. I used to practice hard.
When neighbors peered in the window, how I posed.
What do you do?
                               "Write."

                                               "What?"

                                                               "Poems, novels, plays."

"Garbage, shit, they mix shit with art these days.
I used to see a movie or a show,
But now there's only violence, garbage, rape.
Who listens to Heifetz? Does anyone know
These days, a way to help you feel? Or escape?"
With a thin pipe-like tool he cranks, he finds
My toothbrush in the bowl. I look contrite.

"Look what you lost," he says. I nod, "Right, right."
He doesn't let me help him clean our mess.
I smile to let him see my helplessness.
"Who thought," he mumbles, "when I had my band ...?"
He puts away his tools. "Thanks," he says "for that,"
Pointing to Heifetz, reaching for a hat
He doesn't have to tip. "If you want to flush,"
He says, "Don't fiddle with your brush,"
Then sees a subtler joke in what he's said,
Starts to extend, pulls back a dirty hand,
Then leaves backing out shaking, shaking his head.
​
from New and Selected Poems (1998)