Sweat

    Friday night I entered a dark corridor

    rode to the upper floors with men who filled

    the stainless¹ elevator with their smell.

    Did you ever make a crystal garden， pour salt

    into water， keep pouring until nothing more dissolved？

    A landscape will bloom in that saturation².

    My daddy's body shop floats to the surface

    like a submarine. Men with nibblers and tin snips³

    buffing skins， sanding curves under clamp lights.

    I grew up curled in the window of a 300 SL

    Gullwing， while men glided⁴ on their backs

    through oily rainbows below me.

    They torqued lugnuts， flipped⁵ fag ends

    into gravel⁶. Our torch song

    had one refrain——oh the pain of loving you.

    Friday nights they'd line the shop sink， naked

    to the waist， scour⁷ down with Ajax， spray water

    across their necks and up into their armpits.

    Babies have been conceived on sweat alone——

    the buttery scent⁸ of a woman's breast，

    the cumin of a man. From the briny⁹ odor

    of black lunch boxes——cold cuts， pickles¹⁰，

    waxed paper——my girl flesh grows.

    From the raunchy fume¹¹ of strangers.