Fortuitous Poem by Saul Bellow

Russian Baths in Chicago


Mickey who keeps the food concession
Fries slabs of meat and potatoes pancakes,
And, with enormous knifes, he hacks up cabbages for coleslaw
And he quarters grapefruits (to be eaten by hand).

The stout old men mounting in their bed sheets
From the blasting heat have a strong appetite.
Below, Franush the attendant makes steam
By sloshing water on the white hot boulders.
These lie in a pile like Roman ballistic ammunition.

To keep his brain from baking
Franush wears a wet felt hat with the brim torn off.
Otherwise he is naked.
He crawls up like a red salamander
With a stick to tip the latch of the furnace,
Which is too hot to touch,
And then on all fours,
With testicles swinging on a long sinew
And the clean anus staring out,
He backs away groping for the bucket.
He pitches in the water
And the boulders flash and sizzle.

There may be no village in the Carpathians where such practices still prevail.