The servicemen in their parking
lot blues emerge like snails from vine-covered yards.
They linger on the bricks, running fingers
along electrical boxes. A dirt-clodded gray-hair approves
of a gate handle painted green; he nods his head with infinite tire;
his eyes, two mollusks on a wave, float over to me.
Mine is the first skin they’ve seen in months.
Overhead, unaware of legs, of the soft-bodied men bristling
beside the sidewalk, the sun goggles, dimly.
Dużo pracy hums down the cobbles, rippling the aged skin
all idling at the gates. The servicemen recede
into the blank ocean of sunlight. A gate squeals shut.
My legs are white. The sun goggles on.