Pressure of what you’d hear

if you really heard

the findable pressures

of finite things—

you’d be concussed, actually,

by the carpenter

a Catalan or South Miami Cubano

60-something years old

and carrying a ladder

with inordinate care while complaining

in curses yelped

Spanish-style about the

hardening of his arteries,

his legs ready for the go-round

still, being on the make—

only, in this country

it’s your money or your life,

and we don’t want any

of those who slide into the pew these

Sunday summer mornings

to think the bedmaker

we call Jesus

has really died—after all, the sheets

so neatly & finally tucked-in

on all our beds

are clean, are they not?—so speak

American, says the crew boss,

speak American, OK?

and then shut the hell up.