Times Noir

The old people inoculated themselves against the great depression

with swollen balls of string, slick, bald tires, boxes of dead women’s shoes.

All good, still good, ‘cause you just never know.



In Chicago, they pulled grim survival out of the city dump,

from curbsides, out of alleys—refurbished it—and sold it at a discount,

bicycles, ice boxes, ringer washing machines, a player piano.



At seven cents a piece, grandma sewed fancy collars, in a puddle of kerosene lamplight.

Piece work, sometimes ruined by bloody finger pricks.

Saved by ten thousand stitches from humiliation, soup kitchens, bread lines.



Grandpa rebuilt combustion engines in the work steady day,

blew tenor sax during the speak easy hours—Dixieland jazz,

Comforted by the staccato rhythms of spark plugs and downbeats.



And walked lightly on streets where the newly poor landed after high and lofty falls.

Downtown on Black Thursday, grandpa, confused, watched garbage falling.

Stock market men like sacks tumbling from windows and rooftops in the financial district.



Then Japs and Krauts, swatting the baby for playing with ration cards—

2 lbs sugar, 5 lbs flour, a bit of meat, gasoline—war on the kitchen floor.

Attacking Hitler with a hoe in the backyard clay, composted blitzkrieg.



Rows of infantry cabbage fortified with coffee grounds, with eggshells.

Uncles who marched away singing, dragged home, too shocked to endure whispers,

fortified forever in beer, baseball and blathering alcoholic fog.



Later, under the house in an ammunition box, they buried thirty thousand dollars.

A silver talisman against ruin, against the vision of decent neighbors scrounging garbage.

A rabbit’s foot against the vision of human beings stacked like rubbish.



Alive, but seared as if by a brand, the old people

waited for the return of the four horsemen. Waited

and prepared by saving Kentucky Fried Chicken buckets—in case, just in case.