Main St. Moorestown
Artwork by Erin McGee Copyright 2006

Occupational Hazardlisten

Every day for fifty years
Salvatore Licari worked
At fitting pipes in public schools.
He paid his rent, then bought a house,
And later sent a son to State.
His income rose; his back was bent.

Now on summer days he sits
At public concerts in the park,
Listening while the brass band plays.
A finer plumbing than his own—
He taps his feet and claps his hands,
Yet measures with a level eye
How such twisted instruments
Should lie in clay or under stone.

Martin Itzkowitz teaches in the Department of Writing Arts at Rowan University. He has served as non-fiction editor and executive editor of Asphodel, a literary journal associated with the department's graduate program. Having begun writing poetry shortly after the flood, Martin has published in various venues, most recently in The Lyric and Moment.


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