Factory

As Erie sat on hallowed grey haunches watching
we walked in dark quiet. Tongues webbed by cold,
noses slushed, we made our way to the factory gate
where we stood like ponies knocking our shoes
against the ground, waiting for the whistle.
Breath rising into roses we whispered the names
of our sleeping children like old men
warming themselves on the tug of last night’s beer.
Behind us the tin whores of Homeville
lifted their rusted skirts and history was silent.
No words yet to describe the damage of tannin
stuck to lungs like wax, corneas steeped in the stop bath
of formaldehyde. Fifty years you would live.
Stomachy, hair thinned to threads, before the poison
bubbled to the surface marking your face like keel
There is no room for regret in this stelliform future
Only the past that lies before us like a scribble on the wall.