Hard Rock Mines and Mill-Towns
March 7 2008


Hard rock mines and mill-towns
and places where things get made.
In factories, where big machines
hammer and bash;
and men shout through megaphone hands,
lip-reading
from 2 feet away.

You can see their breath,
punching-in for midnight shift
lunch-buckets stuffed to the brim.
Their steel-toed boots are scuffed
and their work clothes stained and stiff,
and they wear hardhats
with flip-down ear-muffs for noise.
They drive pick-up trucks
— the Ford guys, the GM boys —
loyal for life to their brand.

And when the ore runs out
or the mills close
they sit at home;
reading want ads,
bagging lunch for school,
and making work
for long-suffering wives.
Although the family gets by alright,
with cheap stuff from China
and gadgets from Japan.

He was always a good provider,
with big calloused hands and a strong back
working over-time.
But now, even in bed
he can’t;
a working man
humiliated by his powerlessness.

So more and more, he worries about his wife;
this woman who was always a catch,
and way too good for him
— her wandering eye;
another man’s inquisitive glance.