Elaine Equi: Pick of the Week [ed. Terence Winch]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

Comments

[Jack Skelley]

I’m sure “your” taste in game shows is impeccable. (love this, Elaine !)

[Elinor Nauen]

We all want to be with Elaine. Who wouldn't?

[Don Berger]

A supreme, original invention, this! Kafka would find it a new hidden treasure.

[lally]

yet another knockout by
the uniquely brilliant Elaine Equi!

[Maureen]

Love Elaine's work! Always terrific!

[Anne Harding Woodworth]

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.

[David Lehman]

Wonderful poem -- and collage.

[Eileen]

Wonderful poem. Love the collage.

[eamon Grennan]

Lovely lively funny in every sense weirdstuff poem.

[Doug Pell]

But are the bills getting paid?

[Terence Winch]

Doug: for that kind of dedicated service, I would hope so.

[Terence Winch]

Thanks, Anne. I always love your comments.

[Earle Hitchner]

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.

[Terence Winch]

Thanks, Earle. Great comment.

[vincent katz]

Great poem! Thank you for posting