Today on my way to see
            The Surrealistic Adventures of Women Artists,
                       I tripped and fell into a hole of sky,
tumbled up, and landed
                       at the Locke Insulator Company,
Victor, New York, circa 1903.

I saw my baby grandfather James
           held in the arms of great-uncle Fred,
                       their father in the laboratory
just out of sight, mixing silica,
                       filling beakers, stealing heat
from great-grandmother’s oven
           long past a decent hour of the night.

 Great-grandfather Locke and Sons
           molded their molten glass
                       into green and purple domes—
thick, smooth, helmet-headed—
                       to perch atop telephone poles
and line the railroads
           of a nation newly on the move. 

These Irish, these unschooled,
           these pre-autistic geniuses: 

My heart is linked to theirs
           by something like the cord
                       that links The Two Fridas,
sitting earthbound, politely in chairs,
                       their glistening aortas exposed
to the world in the still-life
           of a Sunday afternoon.