Picking Up Dad from Work
by Chelsey Harris
Wagner Castings Co., 1994
It was all golden air and sepia pavement,
gray smoke blooming from industrial stems.
Fly ash flecked parking lot air, drifting black
snow. Smell of melting rubber and brushfires.
I thought the world would always be that way:
low rumbling machinery, conveyer belts spun
thin, cracks spreading like thickening veins,
distant voices spilling from doors opening
and closing like wings, soot stained hands
clapping shoulders covered by gritty cotton.
