Résumé

You who paid me

For my hours of service
I remember you well.
You will each be paid in kind
When the articles of my will are read
After my muscles have stiffened on my bones.

To Martin, who made me his stock clerk

And spoke of our futures together at Savon Drugs,
I give you back your Timex watches
And your cartons of tampons. I give you back
The plastic pumpkins I stacked all October
The fire-proof Superman suits
And each kernel of candy corn.

To Bill, who watched me box

Knife-sharp sheets of aluminum siding
Through long summer evenings,
I give you the scars on my hands,
My useless gloves and the steel-toed shoes
Alcan Aluminum reimbursed me for;
I give you Angel, the Jamaican, deported
After you fired him for squatting low
And sneaking a joint
On the far side of machine number nine.

To Art, who taught me how to ring up

A sale, I give you back all the unwanted books
You’ve pushed and the twenty cents
Below minimum wage you failed to pay me
For every hour I worked for you.
I give you back the keys to your store
And the one copy of Leaves of Grass
I pinched from your shelves.
To Jim, who taught me how to cheat,
I give you all my lies.

To Leo, who started his career

As a floor walker at May’s and
Never having read a book straight through
Came to manage a bookshop on Eighth Street,
I give you my ignorance. I give you back
The fear your gruffness couldn’t cover.

To Lewis, failed actor, who

For twenty years from four to midnight
Made sure the stacks of bestsellers
Were straight on the first floor
Of Doubleday Bookstore, I give you
Back your ambition, your last audition,
All your un-played parts.

To Paul, failed father,

Inconstant husband, entrepreneur,
I give you the charm you think you have
I exempt you from the death
You cannot face. I give you
An empire you can’t mismanage
And a bottle of Irish whiskey
That never runs dry.