Disassembled Wonder

Disassembled wonder: crates and a box of jangling bolts,
instructions: how to build a liberty

Longshore cousins of a Polish leatherworker, Irish farmer,
olive presser from Spain queued since daybreak
(thermos of coffee and blood sausage on crusty day-old)
hoist the swinging puzzle blocks ship to dock

Thank you France for your daughter’s sandaled toes,
trim dressed torso, legs, torch-flexed arm, and mouth

mouth of the mother of the sculptor who dreams colossus

We wait to hear give me your tired your poor,
yearning to breathe free

but she is babe in the woods, not fully assembled
a bolted welded steel and copper, innocent iron

sheet over scaffold and air

Denise Bergman is author of Seeing Annie Sullivan (Cedar Hill Books, 2005), poems based on the early life of Helen Keller’s teacher, and the editor of an anthology of urban poetry, City River Voices (West End Press, 1992).