Twenty-eight screws
i dreamt for months of rain. in this dream i
collected screws, dropped them singing into the
kitchen pot. you were assembling the bed. in the
empty frame, you sat where the mattress springs
should be, turned the wooden pieces over one by
one in the meat between your second finger joint
and thumb. and i gave you a silver screw—it was
smaller than a collapsed star, then another, and
i don’t know why in your lap the mallet rested
except, perhaps, because wrenches don’t say
enough about what we do for love. i watched
with my silver pot, feeling grateful and useless
as it slowly emptied into the bed. then I doubled
over, holding my stomach and heaving, searching
the floor and piles of sheets for one forgotten
screw. but the bed is finished now and you
kiss my forehead, kiss my neck, feels humid.
the dream forgets itself when you leave with your
dented metal box but I know two or three
things for sure. in the morning, the bed will be
in splinters again. and the mallet is always here.
—-
Twenty-one red and seven white pills
We left the kitchen pot on the burner,
but no don’t worry,
not on.
Where the curtains stop short of the sill,
it lets in sun
so that the silver pot
glares at me
with one white strip.
I push out a piece of it.
We set the coffeemaker before bed
and the heating plate keeps
someday cups
warm for us,
for the late afternoons when
sleep may rouse
like a ghost from the bed,
come upon me again.
With age
I am a morning person
and pour a glass of tap water,
drink it down
as an unknown car
strums the early silence
and passes away. Remember how
once you said
that in dreams,
you confuse
traffic
for the moon’s loving drag
of seawater? But you see I—
I am haunted
by the rain
collecting on
the drainpipes, clogged
with foul liquid. My dreams
drag me madly
out of sleep. It is
a raining week. No, don’t
worry, not
unwell, no
hysteria as your hand finds
the cove at the bottom
of my back,
keeps it warm,
and I swear that I
sleep best when
my forehead rests
in the cup
between your shoulder
and breast bone, sleep best
if no space feels vacant.
This morning I woke
to the humidity of your
breath.
And I don’t worry. Today
is a white day. I place the used
silver pot
into the kitchen sink
before you wake up.
i dreamt last night of lake michigan
dreamt i could smell its foul water
and the sugary runoff of steel mills,
dreamt i watched bethlehem’s
dim candle.
& sister,
you were
up to your shoulders,
mercurial waves licked at your
clavicle
while a plate of gulls spun over us
and cried
like distant
door hinges.
dreamt i watched a rosary
turn in the clouds’
no one hands
and remembered how
(i prayed)
hail mary full of grace
never got to our father.
so sister, i left the flap of beach,
ran home and waited for mother,
perched at the window, watched
the garden tremble. uncovered
tight fists of her hair
hidden in
orange peels.
hid
under
your
covers
and dreamt i could smell your sweat
with the dirt of summer.
& sister
i wonder if
you’ve drowned
& remind myself how
you were diagnosed late last month
with mild autism. how
you left mother with
the doctors and ran
headlong
for dementia.
in your side of the bed, i rub
the pinch
between my ribs, reason to myself
how you couldn’t cry at father’s
funeral.
and prayed
you’d find me
here, crying rose-eyed
at your
ceiling,
spilling out hot tears
like poppies,
but i was
mistaken. & sister
i tried dreaming that you were
a russian
disappearing doll
and i keep you close beneath
my sternum
and we’re huddled deep
& warm
under mother’s cesarean stitches,
but only dreamt of michigan.
& sister
in my dreams i wait for you,
wait for your footsteps
to crack on the floorboards
like axes,
and the water floods in
and wakes us.
diana, in the fall i saw a cardinal
catch the fingers of an elm tree, saw her eyes
watch wind and the dust of dry dirt,
saw them close on the needle
of a steel mill. she was
my soaked heart hung
in a tangle of
branches.
and diana,
one summer i swam in the hot-water discharge
of bethlehem, reminded me of my
baptism
(enriched steel water,
catholic oils, and phosphorus)
current pushed me into colder waters,
reminded me of winter.
and seventeen years ago
in a frozen backyard,
diana, i sliced my finger on a swing-set,
nursed the snowy earth with it.
held the steel chain in my
tiny heart hand and reminded it
of grandfathers and furnaces,
the warmth of sheets it was
cut from, tied into reluctant links
and swung on, guarded it
from wind and the dust of
diana dirt it was hung
in.
diana, you are not my mother,
indiana not my father, and when they are gone
i am an orphan and you won’t remember them.
but my mother works in hospitals and
my father, he is a carpenter
and the nails
sing
when he swings the hammer.
and i,
i must return
in the spring. return, indiana, when
the certainty of weather calls me back
up through the mulch and water,
indiana cut to the marrow,
and the steel, and the phosphorus
indiana that i am made of.
there are thousands of wires
underground and my brain
ticks for every radio signal
that passes through ocular bones
like they’re nothing
but glass. i am trying to tie
a string around a clock face
and forget that in any moment
you could call and
the indigo bulb of a solar flare
would open on my
night stand. but this hope
is small, isn’t it, and loses
me again like a pill
in a coat pocket.
do you know like i know
how entropy tightens
under the ribcage?
how it swells up the dull
ladder bone
to the attic at the back
of my throat
while i wait
for you.
I have been standing all my life in the
direct path of a battery of signals
the most accurately transmitted most
untranslatable language in the universe
I am a galactic cloud so deep so invo-
luted that a light wave could take 15
years to travel through me And has
taken I am an instrument in the shape
of a woman trying to translate pulsations
into images for the relief of the body
and the reconstruction of the mind.
-Adrienne Rich
and after the
bars, the night that
crawls into morning, the suede
dusk lifting its heavy throw,
each weary ankle, soft with
frost, i took a
geranium from the flower box on
high st., held it to my heart and laced the stem through
inlet button holes where my shirt is bunched and
jagged from long wear and too much
kissing in the wedge between hips of
lamp light. i didn’t think how it might be
murder to pick a flower, or that there could be a
nadir of roots left under the soil and
ovum moon. never, if i were to
place it in a mason jar, feed it
quiet and kindness. and if its
red fades to pink, it is only more lovely for having
softened, un-
tightened. no
umbrage or mess of dirt,
xact formulas of phosphorus and salt, no
violence of
weather. and i know i’m so
young, and too often drink vases of white
zinfandels.
in the fall months
and it’s morning
pull the covers over
her ears and
keep the radio
low enough that
she can’t hear
and shower a while
so she will have
more time
to sleep
and when she
wakes, she’ll leave
the bed
and there will be
an hour while
a mulberry leaks
under her
cheek bones
her breasts will
soften in
a worn sweater
that she will let
you pull off her
in the kitchen
after dinner.
—-
sister, if you’re older
by two years and
if you’re twelve, wr-
ap a piece of cotton
in tissue paper, hide it
inside an orange peel.
ask mom if you can
help with laundry,
watch the neighbor’s
little boy for some
money, wear bright
underwear the girl
s at school will like.
try not
to cry, hold tears
in your eyelids like
poppies. if you
are sleeping and
it’s summer, when
the sparrow comes
and pulls cherries
from between your
prickly legs, and if
your sister knocks
to ask you for
water, sees wet
or red, fold her
boxed in your chest
and elbows—she’ll
feel two plums on
her back, you’ll say
, in two years.
if she asks if
that is when you’ll
be sisters again,
wrap the sheets in a
ball, hide them un-
der bed, tell her not
to let herself feel
lonely.
—-
in the mornings when
it’s winter and if it is
too early for anyone
else to be up, if she is
hungry, do not turn on
a lamp yet, pretend that
this is a dream or fable,
draw her up from the
hollow of a white pine.
your arms are a basket
for her head like a hon
eydew. lay in the rock
er with a blanket over
your knees, and if she
stings, rub the little
marble of bone in
her elbow to tell her
to be gentle, promise
you won’t fall asleep
until she’s done. and
if you’ve crept back
to bed, cup a hand—it
does not need to be
yours—under your br
east, and wait a while
for the silent throbbing
to travel northernly in
to your throat full of
walnuts, and sleep un
til it is time for break
fast.
—-
morning
ears
hear
a while
time
to
wake leave
i
b ry
bones
breasts
worn sweat
in the kitchen
after
A boy in this band slays.
These guys were practicing in my basement and I thought they slayed. They are Thenn.
There is a chill
in the absence of language the turning
of sheets the word sheet
in the old room above my lungs
and I am far.
The stiff oaks, leg bones,
dark shifts gathered around the trunks of each—
a familiar body and clothing piled on the ground
such old matter
plush and soaked
with rainwater.
The birch bark
undressing bandages.
A shrub a tangle of fingers and knucklebones
of hairpin
of combs.
Weed grass, a head dozes quietly
under the sod and what if
I were let back into the earth
and words made the sound weeping makes
traveling through my mother’s capillaries?
But words are dead
and have no mouths.
Though sometimes
I can hook a small machine to one
and, like a good nurse,
Shock it.
Then a thin finger will rise
and point.
But it is cold and foggy. The air today
is like milk and the sun
a white pupil I watch behind. I cannot tell
how the sky drains towards it
or when the fog clears.
No, I cannot tell.
Red, I said. Sudden, red.
-Robert Hass
Do you remember the fall
we watched a cardinal
from your window?
The bird body
heaved like a soaked heart
in a rib of branches.
Do you remember the elm
old as thought?
It was balled twine,
a patch of coarse hair
grown in the auburn earth
And the cardinal eye,
it was ovular
like a seed,
like the clotted center
of a peach
It was ripe, to you, she was—
a dry heart
in the dark tangle
of your eyelashes.
And the watchword,
do you remember?
It was
Red, you said,
red.
a morning poem
We left the silver pot on the burner,
but no, don’t worry, not on. It stares
with one white strip of morning sun
from the short side of the curtain.
I made coffee for the two of us
and the heating plate keeps
a someday cup warm until you rouse
from a sleep that, no doubt, still
rocks you softly in a small wooden boat
through sonorous dreams.
With age I am a morning person
and I’m pouring a glass of water
when a car strums the early
silence, then passes away.
For you still sprawled in bed,
traffic is the drag of low tide
on the calm Midwestern sea
a stone’s throw from our window.
This morning a service truck
pulled through
the reluctant water
collected on the drain pipes
and tugged me madly
out of sleep. It is
a raining week.
No, don’t worry, not unwell,
your hand covered the small cave
at the bottom of my back,
kept it warm
and I sleep best
where my forehead rests
in the large cup
between your jaw and clavicle,
sleep best without these absences.
And I don’t worry,
I wake always at nine.
This morning is a white day.
I place the used silver pot
into the kitchen sink
before you get up.
At Melville’s Tomb
by Hart Crane
Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge
The dice of drowned men’s bones he saw bequeath
An embassy. Their numbers as he watched,
Beat on the dusty shore and were obscured.
And wrecks passed without sound of bells,
The calyx of death’s bounty giving back
A scattered chapter, livid hieroglyph,
The portent wound in corridors of shells.
Then in the circuit calm of one vast coil,
Its lashings charmed and malice reconciled,
Frosted eyes there were that lifted altars;
And silent answers crept across the stars.
Compass, quadrant and sextant contrive
No farther tides… High in the azure steeps
Nobody shall wake the mariner.
This fabulous shadow only the sea keeps.
—-
i
Crane
beneath
own bones
. watch
dust
pass without sound ,
The calyx
scattered ,
rid of shells.
The calm of oil,
ash and
Frost lifted
And silent crept across the stars.
No fa ther .
Nobody m ine
Portage, Indiana
Russell
I
Steel is an iron that has most of its impurities removed.
Impurities like silica, phosphorous and sulfur weaken steel
tremendously, so they must be eliminated. The advantage
of steel / over iron is greatly improved strength.
II
Steel is created from mined iron ore .
Iron itself is usually found in the form of
magnetite (Fe3O4), hemanite (Fe2O3),
siderite (FeCO2), goethite
(FeO(OH)) ,
or limonite (FeO(OH).n(H2O) .
Ores carrying very high quantities of
hematite (Fe2O3) or magnetite (Fe3O4)
are known as “natural ore” or “direct
shipping ore,” meaning they can be fed
directly into iron-making blast furnaces.[1]
III
National Steel opened a plant on the
Southern tip
of Lake Michigan in the same
year Portage, Indiana
became a town.
(1959)
Portage Township was founded
in 1835 and comprised the areas
including Crisman, McCool
and Garyton.
A large Native American
tribe named Potawatomi sold
the area of Garyton
to settlers
in 1812 some years after
forcing south the indigenous
Mound Builders.
The last mound
was removed by the owner
Mr. J.S. Robbins in the early
1900s. IV
Wolf
I-94, 80/90 Toll Way,
U.S. 6, U.S. 12, U.S. 20,
Indiana-149, Indiana-249,
In 1963, Bethlehem Steel began construction on a plant which was located partly
in Portage. The project brought about 6,000 jobs to the area. //
In 1959 Portage was incorporated as a town. Ogden Dunes and South Haven were
excluded because the residents did not wish to be included in the town.
Due to the surge of population after the war, many farmers were selling land
to be subdivided into lots for families to build homes. In 1967 [V]
Portage officially became a city. During the 1950s and 1960s the city of Gary
was going through a time of racial strife. White people of Gary
were seeking a way out of the turmoil ,
which drew many white people to Portage during this time.[13]
McCool
VI
John Supp (05/02/1931) left Patton, Pennsylvania after the Patton Clay Works
closed its doors.[citation needed]He and his family (wife, two daughters, three
sons) relocated to Portage, Indiana in 1966. The Patton of today sees
a bright future with additions of Doctor Ann Wetzel, Patton Plaza, /
The Meadows , Patton Terrace and Brickwood Housing Development
located on the old Clay / Works grounds. The Supp family settled in a double-
wide, rust-colored trailer in the Camelot Estates community off of U.S. Hwy 6.
The eldest daughter Kathleen (“Kathy” (06/15/1953)) moved to Muncie, Indiana
in 1971 to earn a nursing degree from Ball State University. The remaining Supp
children, John and Shirley moved into a three-bedroom brick house on Russell St.
The second youngest (Mark, [citation needed]) lived at 2113 Russell Street until 1999
when he died at Porter Memorial Hospital of alcohol poisoning.
Mark is survived by his two daughters Jesse and Justine Supp, sisters Kathleen
and Lynn, brother John “Butch,” and loving mother Shirley.
The youngest (Steve,[citation needed])died in 1997. His body was found with a gun
shot wound to the right temple [citation needed] and a letter addressed to his second-
wife (divorce-pending) that was never delivered.
Steve is survived by his sisters Kathleen and Lynn, brothers John “Butch”
and Mark, and loving mother Shirley.
VII
In the 1980s the U.S. steel industry suffered a devastating decline. Buyers found that
imported steel was much cheaper than domestically manufactured steel. Indiana steel
industries sold shares to a Japanese company (Nippon Kokan K.K.) which acquired half
of National Steel by 1984. The company bled out thousands of workers by 1991. In 2002,
the remains of National Steel were sold.
Coca-Cola Road
silica (SiO2)
phosphorous (P)
sulfur (S) lead (Pb)
manganese (Mn)
tin (S)
Robbins
In 1999 Kathy Gottschlich (maiden name Supp (divorced 1992)) left Crown Point,
Indiana, moved to the brown brick house on Russell and brought back with her
her two daughters, Christen and Michelle ( 1988 and 1990 .)
The smallest
did not want to live in her grandparents’ house
that smelled always of acrylic paint
and porcelain,
the house
her mother
kept
immaculately clean
except for
accidental burns
Mark left
like small blames
on the furniture
with the red ends
of Pall Mall cigarettes.
The house where,
in the cement basement,
a manual washing machine
was kept running
and toads were brought in
to kill the soft insects.
Most of them froze
and my sister and I sought their small
bodies like old toy marbles
rolled away
under the water heater. And
my grandfather died in May of 1998
of a type of cancer I can’t remember
or never asked,
though I feel it may be blood.
Sometimes I can’t remember
this date from his birthday
so I check the obituary.
At the wake, Mark brought
the P.O.W cap and steel framed glasses
with rust tinted lenses
his father had worn
and tucked them under
the jacketed arm. They’re buried
in the cemetery on McCool and I
wonder, still, if John knew
when he left the mills
at the end of the long work day,
what those were or weren’t,
or if the furnace misses him
as I do.
Works Cited (in order of use)
How Iron and Steel Work, HowStuffWorks.com
Iron ore, Wikipedia page
National Steel, Wikipedia page
Portage, Indiana; Wikipedia page
Bethlehem Steel, Wikipedia page
History of Patton Borough, pattonboro.com
John Supp - Portage, IN; locategrave.org
Less lonely, less …
