Poetry in Motion
Los Angeles
Keats (an excerpt)
B. H. Fairchild
Keats (an excerpt)
I knew him. He ran the lathe next to mine.
Perfectionist, a madman, even on overtime
Saturday night. Hum of the crowd floating
from the ball park, shouts, slamming doors
from the bar down the street, he would lean
into the lathe and make a little song
with the honing cloth, rubbing the edges
smiling like a man asleep, dreaming.
From The Art of the Lathe, copyright © 1998 by B.H. Fairchild. Reprinted with the permission of Alice James Books.