“Start the engine,”

Said the mechanic without words

But in two languages,

The first known to most who speak,

The second to few,

Save the man to whom he gestured.

The man signed back.

 

Across the street from the auto shop

Is short cut grass,

Picnic tables, and sunshine,

Beating down on the corporate art,

The giant copper people embracing,

Their legs towering over me,

Their shadows cast far out into the street,

Almost touching the embers of the trees,

Still glowing orange around the edges.

 

There is a giant hole through the middle of the people through which the rare blue sky is visible,

Through which the bay, and the train tracks, and the occasional rushing Sounder can be seen.

There is no telling to whom the hole belongs,

To each body or to the space between bodies,

The shape they make, curved, leaning against each other.

There is no description for this piece,

No sign revealing the work beyond that of the bodies, and their heads,

Split wide open at the top like flower petals.

If sprinklers rise up from their skulls

And proceed to water the tidy grass before the office buildings with no employees,

I will join in the drinking.