Devotion: The Garment District

In bed as the machinery of morning begins, indistinguishable

the subterranean turbines of the A train from the jet engine

as it gins the clouds, rips and reseams the length of dungaree

on its way to Pittsburgh (with the terrible and subtle cargoes,

with ashes and a cat under the seat) from the pulleys

of the service elevators from the baffled sound across the alley

of the hand-iron press and the sewing machine motors whirring

bobbins that stitch together the hot properties of Seoul

      and the suburbs

and the idiot village of Chelm, needle the veronica

      and the Buddha robe

and the sateen for spring. I looked over at her. Her skin a warp

of Christ and a weft of meat. All night she had hauled me

and the boy and the smoky, feckless men I was across

the fens and stretches of mesquite through the tunnels

and delivered me to my misery and the laborious knots of the sheets

I wound myself in. And she was exhausted from Eros and swollen

from anger. She could stand to put on a few pounds. I could see it

in her ribs. Before I would marry my restlessness to her terror,

before the crushes and wages could be made into our equity, before

the endlessness would end in spinning jennies and sleaze

      and the noise

of a fleet of vehicles with tinted windows testing

      the evacuation routes,

I would cut, then peel, then dice, then caramelize some onions

before she wasted away to nothing.