Fall 2008, Volume 5

Poetry by Carol V. Davis

Loving a Plumber

            It remains a mystery
how the turning of a spigot
            releases the flow
Water brought forth by sheer will
            or blind trust
We must pay homage to the pipes
            force of their angles
the resilience of curves
            as if sheer determination
could bend steel
            So much taken for granted
We recoil at a trickle of rust
            as if there were danger in it
Perhaps it is better to love a plumber
            than a poet
Reach for a Stanley wrench
            to tighten an elbow joint
before the copper rod bursts
            and the water rises


BIO:  Carol V. Davis' books are It's Time to Talk About &, (Russia, bilingual) and two chapbooks, Letters From Prague and The Violin Teacher. She was a Fulbright scholar in St. Petersburg, Russia, (1996/97 and 2005). She received the 2007 T.S. Eliot Prize for Into the Arms of Pushkin: Poems of St. Petersburg. She teaches at Santa Monica College, CA and is the 2008 Poet-in-Residence at Olivet College, MI.