My father, Paddy Winch (1905–1971), worked as the custodian of St. Thomas Aquinas elementary school in the Bronx, which this poem commemorates. He was a very generous and loving man, much beloved by his children and all who knew him. The photo shows him playing the banjo in 1958 in the house in Cahercrea, County Galway, Ireland, where my mother, Bridie Flynn, was born and raised. My parents were in Ireland that summer, their first trip back in almost 30 years. (Dublin cousins Noel Rogan and Martin Dawson are also seen in the photo.)
Custodian
for charlie fanning
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I ran the shovel along the street,
a razor path through the sidewalk face,
snow lather parting for me, for my father,
our feet crunching in the city night.
We grabbed the garbage cans from school
and church and dragged them up the iron
stairs. I lugged burlap bags stuffed
with bingo cards, light as cream puffs.
We swept the auditorium with green sawdust
from huge drums. We hammered and drilled
in his workshop, where tools hung on pegboard,
their images silhouetted behind them
For instant identification and placement.
Once he sawed his index finger in half
on the power saw in a moment of inattention
in a life otherwise built of skill and care.
Once a year the Monsignor made him climb inside
the giant boiler and clean it out
with enormous pipe cleaners till he was black
with soot that took days to wash off.
Sonny boy, he called me, and laddie buck.
He always said just do your best.
We loved to watch him fall asleep
on the couch, Daily News over his face
Snores filling the apartment
with the music of rest well deserved.
His finger took years to heal enough
for him to play again but a black scar
Ran down its center. He’d give me a rub
with his unshaven face, rough as sandpaper.
He’d pretend he didn’t know me, scrubbed from
the tub, the lovely lie delighting me every time.
from Boy Drinkers (Hanging Loose Press, 2007)