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Frank Finale

Horseshoe Crabs | Construction Worker | Last Stop

Frank Finale is the author of the regional best sellers TO THE SHORE ONCE MORE, Volumes I & II (Jersey Shore Publications, 1999 and 2001 -- a compilation of his prose and poetry and the reproduction of paintings by local artists of the Jersey Shore. In 1996, he co-edited, with Rich Youmans, UNDER A GULL'S WING (Down the Shore Publishing) an anthology of poems and photographs about the Jersey Shore. In 1983, he helped found the literary magazine WITHOUT HALOS and served as editor-in-chief from 1985 through 1995. Currently, Frank is poetry editor for THE NEW RENAISSANCE, an international magazine of ideas and opinions, emphasizing literature and the arts. His most recent publications appear in THE BALTIMORE REVIEW, IDENTITY LESSONS (Penguin Books), THREE STORIES: A COLLECTION OF EXTRAORDINARY ENCOUNTERS, and ITALIAN AMERICAN WRITERS ON NEW JERSEY (Rutgers University Press, 2003), among others. Over the years, he has had work in THE GEORGIA REVIEW, KANSAS QUARTERLY, POET LORE,, NEGATIVE CAPABILITY, BLUE UNICORN, PIG IRON, US I WORKSHEETS, NEW YORK QUARTERLY and THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, among others. He taught for 38 years in the Toms River Regional Schools and was named to the 2002 Governor's Teacher Recognition Program. In that same year, he wrote his first children's book A GULL'S STORY (Jersey Shore Publications). Frank has done district-wide workshops for teachers on "The Effective Use of Poetry in the Classroom" and regularly gives readings throughout the Jersey Shore and New Jersey. For more information see www.frankfinale.com/

Horseshoe Crabs

I fear the crabs, feel their pincers plying my skin,
picking at the mind's flaws.
See that humped horseshoe with tapered spike that seems to float
above the grains and flounce
like a pugilist when poked. Upset it. Stare at the underside

of fright. Legs, jointed like spiders, writhe for webs
of seaweed, rocks and water,
scramble like insects brought to light from underworlds
of damp stones—claws waging
a war with air, a spike carefully wheedling

the wind. Once Paleozoic crawlers, whose armor
awkward species survived
the dinosaur and war, their shapes lie beached
and form a trail of lost
horseshoes for mud, sand and time to record.

In the shell of night, in the mythy mind, the crabs rule.
Spiny, adept with claws,
they crawl, black-brown, from a dragon-hissing sea of sleep
up to feast on
some forgotten fear; some shape too distant to remember.

Construction Worker

Driving to work on Rt. 37 West
he spots two white-tail deer bloating
on the side of the road. He carries them
in his thoughts to the work site. There he leaves
his Chevy, slaps on his yellow hard hat
and begins to shamble down the stripped slope.
The rest of the crew is already drinking
Seven-Eleven coffee. Before he reaches them
an old woman searching for her house wanders
up to him. She has been away
two weeks in Florida and did not realize
another section had been added to
the village, another piece that looks the same
as the one before it, five variations
of houses repeating their pattern;
at the main entrance, a new funeral parlor.

In the unfinished sector, a whirlwind
begins lifting leaves and dust. Out-dated newspapers
pulled into circulation
swirling from foundation to foundation, suddenly
lose energy,
drop. Workers in T-shirts snap
metal bands from a pallet of pipe.
Working in sync, they string out a few hours worth of work.
Blindingly bright, pipes reflect in sun,
forecast a hot day. The backhoe clanks
into place, begins its methodical pawing
at the earth. Like the hours ahead of them, the trench lengthens,
He, too, becomes lost in the labyrinth,
the deer having slipped his mind which now tracks
the sun's arc to the end of the day. Quitting time,
the trench filled, the pipe connected, a ghost
of dust follows each worker's car out;
at home, it reappears in their handkerchiefs.
That night he dreams of the old woman floating
away from the village; two white-tail deer
follow: past the funeral parlor, above
the yellow machines and whizzing cars
on Rt. 37, toward the horizon till they fade,
three commas in an invisible sentence.

LAST STOP

Bay Head Station. End
of the line for New Jersey
Transit. Only a thousand
three hundred residents
year round. Katherine
Hepburn lived here.
The bygone Lorraine movie house
is specialty shops now, but
All Saints Episcopal and
the Yacht Club endure
into the new millennium.
The salt-white clock tower
and cross of the Sacred Heart Church
shine over Route 35 blacktop.
Sea and wind sculpt
this beach of high dunes,
and tourists still come
to sun and praise.
The Northern Cross takes
its place in the August sky
just as it did when
the Lenni-Lenape looked up
from their longhouses
and all things
possessed a spirit.

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