David Grubb
How The Silence Stacks At Ellis Island
I.
What is white bread? What is banana?
‘H’ is for heart problem ‘L’ is for lameness.
You cannot hide the heart problem, it never goes.
Sometimes you can hide the lameness by keeping
within the crowd, clinging to the queue, using
your baggage to bow you down.
Five hours of questioning and then set free
to the coal, the cattle, the railroad
or detained until the eyes lose
that redness.
In freezing dreams the EYE MAN spies.
II.
Twelve million landings here
and each arrival more like a farewell.
With what language do we now describe
the silences?
A wooden hat box filled with fears,
a field in Ireland for ever
fixed in the grip of this glove.
A pathway or a small room
or the eyes of those left behind
to sit between the hours of questions,
the assembling of a new identity.
In freezing dreams the EYE MAN spies.
III.
Entire days spent on deck
between blankets and rags, wind
and shit and the mouths that could
no longer tell stories.
Later a game of graffiti
to keep one whole, to name
the blame, to say that you
were here
about to disappear.
What is white bread?
Is ‘future’ food?
In freezing dreams the EYE MAN dies
and we see Annie Moore from Ireland
telling her story.
Page(s) 26-27
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