The Quarry. Dan Lechay

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       Work

      That winter, every morning

      long before dawn, two lights shone

      in the house. A passerby

      (had anyone been passing

      at that hour, in that weather)

      might have thought something

      was wrong—maybe a child

      was sick? but no, it was only

      my mother (downstairs in

      the kitchen) and me (upstairs,

      just getting out of bed, putting

      on jeans and boots). When

      I got downstairs, my mother

      might still be cutting the half

      grapefruit I ate each morning—

      inserting the sharp, delicate

      knife between rind and

      flesh, peeling each segment

      so I could eat it with a spoon…. Into

      the night, then, after breakfast:

      the scarf and gloves she’d made

      me wear keeping me warm and dry,

      I’d walk three blocks to the lamp-

      lit corner where my bundle—

      stiff, snow-crusted—waited,

      slice the twine and stow the

      hundred papers in my sack. War

      in Egypt, hangings in Alabama—

      I walked my route, unconscious

      bearer of the world’s news.