Sandhog
for Paul Rohan
Old scrapper, skin for gloves,
calloused knuckles, broken nose
that made your face fit your voice:
Brooklynese classic-poet-quoting boxer
belying your fourth-grade education—
Milton, Chaucer, The Bard in
the corner of your kitchen, your son
rolling his eyes, thirsty for a cold one,
itching to leave the house paid for by
overtime Sandhog cash earned working
earth-shifters, bedrock-breakers, breathing
pumped-in pure oxygen in the womb
of the earth; even now in your eighties,
your doctor marvels at your lungs,
but you recall the cave in, the crushing
of your ribs, the year in a body cast
spent memorizing ten-dollar words
and immortal stanzas, impressing
the college educated like your son and me,
both thirsty but not as much as you.
