The Lake House After Lay-Offs At The Ford Plant Poem by Bernard Henrie

For no reason and half-asleep
in the supine dark, I think
of my work at Ford, visits with
workmates to the lake house,
my first meeting with you.

I think of the bay windows
where you sat feet tucked under.

My lathe operator brow
taking you in, hod carrier
shoulders hunched, my claw hammer
hand touching your shoulder,
dancing.

God on the lips of your empress
mother. A ruby bowl of buds,
fur throws beside the untuned
piano, music sheets scattered on the
oak floor, powder on a woman.

I impose myself under the Japon
masques and a Remington Indian
on the wall, my first painting lesson
and dance, Your devil red lipstick,
brush stroke of perfume.
Grapes passed 'round, card games,
a ringing dnner bell.


Your bold walk of a harem dancer,
the zebra couch, half-closed eyes
as you sucked a peach fetched
from Ford's Rouge plant.

I posed for you naked from the waist-up,
a hairy ape steaming from the coal forge.

Memory like a night visitor
rustles on the stoop.

Ah, a dozen rains. Furrowed eaves
awash in the disheveled past,

a linet lifts from the gorse bush,
workers shamble off and in my mind
the lake resounds in a feeble glimmer.

Lay-off notices are posted,
death announcements in the paper,
a TV plays all the monotonous afternoon,
my pension from a bureau
somewhere, the lake shrunk by half,
the house a lodge and you married well,
no longer young as a cherry orchard.