This poem was published in the 2013 edition of Artemis, a print-only publication of the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD).
The Brickmakers
2013
The brickmakers came for me as they made their rounds through the city.
They beat me. They glue bricks
to the bottoms of their shoes.
They walk clack clackitty clack like a pack of horses,
they make such a racket coming
up from the docks.
In the daylight you can see them floating in the water.
The tops of their heads, eyes closed in dreaming,
but when the night bell rings, the last fog horn roars
in the empty night, they come clicking into town.
We leave bread by the door, fearing repercussions,
the scrapings of red down the street like warnings.
They dance down the ocean way with saws and trumpets.
They fiddle on rooftops. A lone violinist
on the shingled roof of the municipal building.
They found me in my bathrobe, they pulled me from my bed,
and danced till my feet ached and my eyes went red.
They danced me like the whore I am, and in the morning
I was stomping down the street, clack clackitty clack.