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which was lovely then: a white sheet
drawn up , like a joke , over
the face of a sleeper.
As they lob the bottles in
the son begs a trick
and the milkman obliges : tossing
one bottle in a high are,
he shatters it in midair
PARTISAN REVIEW
with another. One thousand astonished
splin ts of glass
falling ....
The breaking of the glass enables the poem to break out of the naive,
Currier-and-lves-Iike setting . The trick represents the unexpected
and astonishes the glass itself. The milkman is being playful, yet, if
you will, he demonstrates to his son the
art
of breaking bottles.
Although he misses nearly half:
Along with gentleness ,
and the sane bewilderment
of understanding nothing cruel,
it was a thing he did best.
The development of the theme of work can be traced
throughout
Half Promised Land.
In "Empty Pitchforks" the elemen–
tal struggle is both economic and biological: "There was debtor's
prison before inmates/ there was hunger prefossill there was pain
before a nervous system to convey it to the brain . . .. " The
premises and promises of this Half Promised Land are instilled in
the schools that contradictorily teach admiration for literature and
art, yet steer students toward other vocations. "You go to school to
learn/ to read and add, to someday/ make some money . " ("You Go
To School To Learn") For in poverty there is the danger of beeom–
ing the "Pedestrian" met on a thousand street corners .
Tottering and elastic , middle name of Groan,
ramfeezled after a hard night
at the corpse polishing plant, slope–
shouldered, a half loaf. ..
