Sisyphus in a Sheepskin Coat

 

I did my hitch with Uncle Sam

and with my last paycheck nabbed

                             a fine sheepskin coat

then settled in to a flat on Vanduzee Street

down the saddle, at the bottom of the bowl

between the two hills of Coffeen

 

That coat: in lieu of a couch, TV, kitchen table

and half a payment on my old Jeep

which, in the end, they came for anyway

 

That coat: now three years worn,

toasty as an open hearth, snug as armor,

a revenant during the day, a robe at night

and the only time I ever feel truly safe is when I’m within it

 

Thank god this icebox city keeps its seasons brief

and drags its bitter winters large and long

where the deep freeze seems to suppress the startle reflex

 

My friends know me, and so say things like

whenever I join them in one of the taverns

nestled between all the fruit stands and clip joints

here in the west end, the sand flats, where the locals often mistake me for a cousin, calling out

with wide smiles, “Hey ginzo! Hey goombah!”

 

One night, my best friend Darcy, who is not one of the locals,

said to me, “Chuckie, Chuckie, you’re a regular Sisyphus!”

 

My other bud Dylan cackled,

I can take a joke, which I suppose it was

                                      but at the time it flew over me

they went on talking about Skinner and Piaget

                                      as I thought of Sisyphus

condemned to roll that stone to the peak of a hill

                                      and watch it roll down again,

again and again, cursed to endless struggle

 

This Sisyphus

who twice cheated death

                                      as I had

whose existence was mere and meaningless,

                                      full of nothing but grim repetition

 

So what of the two crests of Coffeen Street Hill?

 

At one end of the hill: a stash of classrooms,

at the tip of the other, a jail—

next to the college, a diner

and across from the jail, a poor man’s conservatory

 

where I tried piano lessons,

but froze stiff every time a sharp or flat came into view

and no grit could make up for the tremors in my hands,

            so I quit

 

I tried guitar the following year, but flunked that too

 

At Shorty’s Diner on the opposite hill there was a waitress

keen on me, till she dumped me for a quarryman from Carthage

 

Three times I made it as far as midterms at that cannonball school

and three times dropped out of view

 

As for the jail, I’ve twice been a guest of the flint-nosed sheriff

 

So, yeah, I guess my pals had a point—

I’ve been a stone pusher alright

 

Maybe I need to poke a little more fun at myself

maybe I need to shed my coat

maybe they didn’t even really know who Sisyphus was

 

I want to get my coat cleaned, but now I’m saving like a madman

for a set of encyclopedias, leather-bound Britannicas,

with bookmarks of fine ribbon and soft flossy tassels,

retailing at eleven hundred bucks, so these days I’m practically

living off tavern breadsticks and leftovers at Darcy & Dylan’s

 

The 32 volumes stack up at precisely sixty-two & a quarter inches

so over to Home Depot I’ll go for a plain pine board

                             and tack a shelf up above the coat rack

 

And in my little three-lamp flat I’ll read and get up to speed

I’ll listen to the comfort of river and rail outside my window

                                        —and I will promise myself sleep—

for in the morning there will be frost on the stubborn stone

 

Next Monday’s the first day of spring registration

I’ve got all the forms

             I can see that classroom now,

                                    I will sit closest to the door