Three Cheers for My Friends, Their Hard Labor
loving me, and three more
for my many gifted enemies
all of whom, I guess, I am.
Among the home invaders
I leave the windows open for
one believes the body is an instrument
in need of tune. Is the wind
through my body like a reed
renting song? I jog by a fire drill tower
where firefighters practice
firefighting. Ringing up the tower steps
is sheetmetal bells in a hurricane,
is rubber angels
held to earth with heavy wings. Lord,
in this poem in which every room
is burning
if I may ask one fever back from this
spring of wilding
despair, let it be a toy of disaster:
on Floor 1 of my private fire tower
the broken necklace of my spine
unravels river stones across the bright
hardwood. On Floor 2, I commit
the rounding error of trusting
in forever. On the top floor,
deep-wading through a sea of smoke—
I put my ear to the white
bulb of my fist. Listen,
the amber of an orchestra
tuning up:
Nick Martino grew up alongside the ocean of Lake Michigan. An MFA candidate in poetry at UC Irvine, his work is published or forthcoming in Volume Poetry, Carve Magazine, and Foothill Journal.
The Mantle 