Furnace
by James Hoch
Rust-splotched, thin-walled, coal-pocked,
It sat hulled to the cellar floor, a leviathan
of cinder and metal. We did not believe
it could speak, though we goaded and warded
and goaded friends into sticking their heads
in its open mouth, as if its jaws would
clamp down, clench shut like a turtle’s,
and though it unmovable the day two men
from Mohrfield Oil winched and pulleyed
and heaved it from its moorings. More like
excuses for muscle than gods, though
the house shook and buckled and swayed
when they hauled it out the door. Four of us
huddled on red steps. Our mother upstairs,
the crow’s nest of her bedroom, yelling
directions, though we could not hear them,
so would not follow and chased after
the back of the flatbed, waving good-bye,
its black mouth agape, hinged, singing.
James Hoch (born June 9, 1967) is an American poet. He is son of a teacher-coach and a saleswoman, Hoch grew up in Collingswood, New Jersey, with three older siblings. Hoch studied philosophy at Millersville University and graduated from University of Maryland with an MFA in creative writing/poetry.
Hoch has taught at Franklin and Marshall College and Lynchburg College. He now teaches in the Salameno School of Humanities and Global Studies at Ramapo College in New Jersey. Prior to teaching, Hoch worked as a dishwasher, dock worker, cook, social worker, and shepherd.
Hoch’s poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Washington Post, Antioch, Slate, The Kenyon Review, The Gettysburg Review, Ninth Letter, Carolina Quarterly,The Virginia Quarterly Review, New England Review, Pleiades, Black Warrior Review, Gettysburg, Five Fingers, and The New Republic.
He was the 2008 The Frost Place Poet in residence.