The Crooked Men

The Crooked Men

The Crooked Men

My Dad straightened out the crooked men
In the old laundry shed
Above the fishing gear and jars of nuts and bolts
Where on a rack
Their naked, twisted forms did hang from the neck,
Body hair like pine-needles,
Restrained by welded g-clamps
And steel-trap teeth
Hydraulic arms and pulleys
And a shiny drip-tray on the floor
To catch the expelled, blackened hate

Sometimes eight, sometimes ten
The crooked men
With faces like prunes
Tattoos and scars
And tongues that could no longer work
But engulfed by obscenities
As they leaked night and day
In that old laundry shed

And they were not grateful or ungrateful
The crooked men,
Nor were they in debt to my father
And his amazing rack,
In these days when their hate would trickle through my backyard haven
Drowning the smells of Saturday afternoon and freshly cut grass
And the yap of the Labrador
And innocence lost
To the crooked men . . .