print previewback KATE NORTHROP
The Pickup’s
stuck in the trees, lodged
fast. When you
were four, when five . . .
we’ve tried, Jack’s alive, cannot
rock it out. Now who’s
in the house? The uncles!
Kicked back in their chairs,
they haw-haw, put some
hair on it! but the truck’s
stove in and spins out
in the sent-down: slick leaves.
We’ve knocked hard, seen
rings of stars, sister,
and we’re tired of pushing,
of walking up and down Broad,
faces swimming in shiny
as bedspreads on motel beds
and the sidewalk
repeating itself, ahem, ahem,
the sidewalk drawing us
back to the creek,
to the runoff standing
black bright in grass
stiff with frost but still
growing through, sister, see?
Downtown last summer, I counted
seven demolitions: debris
overhead drifting
and the mannequin’s
bent elbow a building
floating downstream
green the river, the roof
green the kitchen sink
we stood at spitting,
kicking the counter
and scouring plates
in filmy dishwater until
they shone, fishtailed
out of our throats? until
they shone like our own
collarbones: shaped
in the dark and strange 
The Director
The Pickup’s