Sweat

　　by Sandra Alcosser

　　 Friday night I entered a dark corridor

　　 rode to the upper floors with men who filled

　　 the stainless elevator with their smell.

　　 Did you ever make a crystal garden， pour salt

　　 into water， keep pouring until nothing more dissolved？

　　 A landscape will bloom in that saturation.

　　 My daddy's body shop floats to the surface

　　 like a submarine. Men with nibblers and tin snips

　　 buffing skins， sanding curves under clamp lights.

　　 I grew up curled in the window of a 300 SL

　　 Gullwing， while men glided on their backs

　　 through oily rainbows below me.

　　 They torqued lugnuts， flipped fag ends

　　 into gravel. Our torch song

　　 had one refrain--oh the pain of loving you.

　　 Friday nights they'd line the shop sink， naked

　　 to the waist， scour down with Ajax， spray water

　　 across their necks and up into their armpits.

　　 Babies have been conceived on sweat alone--

　　 the buttery scent of a woman's breast，

　　 the cumin of a man. From the briny odor

　　 of black lunch boxes--cold cuts， pickles，

　　 waxed paper--my girl flesh grows.

　　 From the raunchy fume of strangers.