photo by Jerome Sala
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The Repairman
I can’t get rid of him. One day I found him sprawled on the floor tinkering
with the radiator. He was very vague about who had called him (not me)
but seemed to think he had every right to be there. Then he handed me a bill
for several thousand dollars. I said: “I can’t deal with this now, I’m late
for an appointment.” But when I got to my office, he was already standing
in the hallway tapping the walls with a concerned look. “Structural tests,” he said.
After that I began seeing him everywhere, like a shadow carrying a toolbox.
He followed me to school as sure as Mary’s little lamb. Later, he followed me
into a bar, sat a few stools away, sipped a beer, and made fun of my taste
in game shows. He even had the audacity to ring my mother’s doorbell on
Thanksgiving claiming he had come to look at the dishwasher, but instead
got into a discussion with her about fall fashions. In all fairness, he doesn’t
seem dangerous or malicious; he’s never tried any funny business. But I have
to ask myself if he’s fixed one thing. The answer is I don’t think he even tries.
He just seems to want to be with me. Meanwhile, the bills keep coming.
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Elaine Equi’s latest book is The Intangibles from Coffee House Press. Her other books include Ripple Effect: New & Selected Poems, Click and Clone, and Sentences and Rain. Widely published and anthologized, her work has appeared in the American Poetry Review, Big Other, the Brooklyn Rail, The Nation, The New Yorker, Poetry, and in many editions of the Best American Poetry. She teaches at New York University and in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at The New School.
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"The Painter," collage by John Ashbery, 2014.
I’m sure “your” taste in game shows is impeccable. (love this, Elaine !)
Posted by: Jack Skelley | April 04, 2021 at 01:47 PM
We all want to be with Elaine. Who wouldn't?
Posted by: Elinor Nauen | April 04, 2021 at 02:02 PM
A supreme, original invention, this! Kafka would find it a new hidden treasure.
Posted by: Don Berger | April 04, 2021 at 02:33 PM
yet another knockout by
the uniquely brilliant Elaine Equi!
Posted by: lally | April 04, 2021 at 02:57 PM
Love Elaine's work! Always terrific!
Posted by: Maureen | April 04, 2021 at 05:15 PM
From start to finish, this guy leads me right into the speaker’s life. And as curious as I am about the repairman I feel a tension, a need to protect the speaker. But from what? A stalker? Paranoia? Loneliness? Debt? Needless repair? That not being in control? (unlike the poem, which is very much—and beautifully—in control of itself.
Posted by: Anne Harding Woodworth | April 04, 2021 at 08:57 PM
Wonderful poem -- and collage.
Posted by: David Lehman | April 04, 2021 at 09:00 PM
Wonderful poem. Love the collage.
Posted by: Eileen | April 05, 2021 at 11:33 AM
Lovely lively funny in every sense weirdstuff poem.
Posted by: eamon Grennan | April 05, 2021 at 12:59 PM
But are the bills getting paid?
Posted by: Doug Pell | April 05, 2021 at 06:28 PM
Doug: for that kind of dedicated service, I would hope so.
Posted by: Terence Winch | April 05, 2021 at 08:29 PM
Thanks, Anne. I always love your comments.
Posted by: Terence Winch | April 06, 2021 at 12:41 PM
I’m not sure why the repairman played on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE by Dan Ackroyd popped to mind after I read Elaine Equi's wonderful poem detailing a kind of exhilarating exasperation. After all, there are no butt fissures half-displayed in "The Repairman.” Maybe the answer resides in these lines from another poem by Elaine, “National Poetry Month”: “When a poem / speaks by itself, / it has a spark / and can be considered / part of a divine / conversation.” No ifs, ands, or buttocks about it: “The Repairman” sure got me talking. Brava, Elaine.
Posted by: Earle Hitchner | April 08, 2021 at 03:34 PM
Thanks, Earle. Great comment.
Posted by: Terence Winch | April 08, 2021 at 04:10 PM
Great poem! Thank you for posting
Posted by: vincent katz | April 10, 2021 at 09:35 PM