Crane Dance
in memory of Francesco
Antonio Corso
1.
My grandfather’s crane
spanning fire
long-necked long-legged
teething molten bone
He rides
with a sweat-band above his brow
stroking its mechanical head
to drop white hot ingots into a trolley
He rides
its flexion in crackled air
to machine through
nightshiftingnight
2.
My grandfather’s crane
spanning fire
long-necked long-legged
teething molten bone
as he becomes one of those
predictions of science*
In my dream he doesn’t die
I fold a thousand origami cranes
and he rides in a vim of
courtship dance—pairs of birds
whisk their wings and vault the air
high above the wintering ground
*The poem’s reference is also to The
University of Pittsburgh
School of Public Health’s study on the
relationship between a
steelworker’s exposure to cancer-causing
agents and their mortality
rate. What researchers found
was that the risk for lung cancer,
leukemia and other cancers was higher. My grandfather was a
crane operator at Allegheny Ludlam Steel in Brackenridge,PA for
47 years before retiring. He died of leukemia in 1966.
Paola Corso, Once
I Was Told the Air Was Not for Breathing
(University of Wisconsin's Parallel Press, 2012)
Of My Eye
1.
Of my eye, the apple
you set on my desk, delicious
red streaked yellow, tiny enough
to cup in the palm of my hand,
Mei Lu, womanmotherstudent
learning English, the words
to say you can't come
to Conversation Club today.
We'll miss you, I say, chalking the date
March 25, 1911 on the blackboard
to prepare for my lesson.
Next week, yes? No. I work now.
You found a job. Doing what?
Seamstress. She smiles,
takes the chalk from my hand
and draws pattern pieces. Tell me
about the dresses you sew,
how many pleats, how many cents
how many hours, how many times
will I look through thick bangs
fringing your eyes and wonder
how many floors, how many
escapes, how many doors
will be locked.
2.
Of my eye, the apple
shaped as your heart,
Mei Lu, womanmotherstudent
learning English, the words
to say your teacher can't
take a bite, hear the crisp,
smell its sweetness break the air
between us when I think
of clenching my fist
to keep you safe, to keep you
all safe,
not bolts of fabric.
Once you leave the room,
the apple on the windowsill
—a glaze of light
to see how you stood
at the stalls of fruit
with baby on your hip
one hand in a bin,
holding each to examine
skin & boundary
3.
Of my eye, your apple
inside my coat pocket
during the centennial march
of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory
fire. We carry 146 blouses
with sashes bearing the names
of workers who perrished,
who sat at a sewing table
as you now sit, bodies found
leaning into their machines,
huddled in the cloakroom, broken
on the sidewalk below.
Shirtwaists raised to the sky,
their delicate sleeves float the
wind
down Broadway—every life
borrowed, every life returned
Paola Corso, Once I Was Told the Air
Was Not for Breathing
(University of Wisconsin's Parallel Press, 2012)