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Divisions of Labor
by Michael Sanchez
Back then time moved like the migration of teeth
over time. One-way street was padded with gray and blue
cars on both sides. I don’t know whether we were going forward
or if everything was backing up.
Constantly in need of breakfast we drove into the city
with our elbows out.
Glassblowers lined the five-lane freeway.
In pairs they worked the roadside with their cheeks
puffing. Some of them were perched on trees,
some of them hung lights along the necks
of lampposts. Some of them weren’t doing much of anything.
Some of them were hunched over,
turning their breaths into stained glass animals.
Their beards sweated and they worked with gravity.
At the end of each thin, long instrument breath
the bright red swelling spread outward
from the underside of bullfrog tongues
to the underside of bullfrog throats, the kind of red that develops
at a low frequency, the kind of red that lets you see
through the chest, bullfrog lungs filling up
like two delicate stomachs.
Wailing up and down a police car sped past everybody,
and we didn’t know what to make of it.
Air pounding the freeway sounded like the ear brushing
against the length of paper tablecloth, or sprinklers
going off in the snow. It was that humid.
I don’t know whether our windows were down
or if we had no windows.
On the side glassblowers were making the city.
The same waiter saw to it that we got our breakfast
and despite our polite objections, it was always spicy.
I don’t know whether it was because there was too much hot sauce,
or because the hot sauce was too hot.
Either way we had to learn to chew with our mouths closed.
Back then the way things were moving
every day I had to find a new way to close my mouth.
back to Spring 2007 Table of Contents
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