Allison Bishop "Mr. G" (poem)

I
Cloistered hound dog eyes
evade as he signs-in
sleeve hugged down
as a buffer to pen’s contamination.
Feet falling from a stranger’s
broken boots
he takes refuge
in his boxes &
the mystery treasures
he wraps all day

every day

Once his mother
tucked him into bed,
loved his long limbs
and sweet consideration,
held him to the world
and mourned the day they
shipped him like cattle
to slaughter somewhere
where the spoken language
did not even look the same
as hers.

But the bombs were as explosive
in Vietnamese
as they might have been
in English.

Silence has become his
bastion against the whole
unbidden world. Silence
broken by my greeting
which, after six years,
he will finally
answer with a nod

II
Once wrapped
& piled in
box block formation
one standard issue
cement block

III
Dear Mr. G.,
When you sign your name at day’s end, when most of us are punching clocks, going home to friends and family, the BBQ or the restaurant to meet a friend, or our daily issue of 6 o’clock news reruns of misery and disaster to help make us feel safe on the sofa and the long stretch of life extending like a promise before us and we have not remembered to be glad, seeking diversion in things which instead tear us from our origins: no longer hunter or gatherer, not even running except on tracks going nowhere before plate glass windows to an eyeful of strangers not looking up or greeting because such acts of courage are considered an offense to the well disguised habit of minding one’s own business, wouldn’t it be something if someone just sort of looked at you with your duffle over your shoulder as you walk collecting treasures? Do you miss having a life like ours or do you congratulate yourself on the narrow escape?

IV. A POSTCRIPT

I follow
the lingering smell of Mr. G.

his absence is heavy
with ripe vegetable
aroma settled in the wood floor
just as his chair once dug through paint
and fibre links to grind his space
his wrapping and unwrapping space
his unwrapping and wrapping place

which is held two years after
we have asked him to leave

2005