Paper Mill Town

So we can have our fine and cherished texts
(those rocket-launched epiphanies emerge
when we scratch temples, eyes hazy in thought),

they went to work—noses upturned in that
nearly shriveled and rotted pulpy stench
tossed sideways into air like chimney smoke

on gray days with no contrast to offer,
every day the same, unyielding; they went to work,
lonely machinists gripped rusty lunch pails

and counted hours, and counted hours,
while the boys—pimply, cactus-stubble shaved—
pushed mops and daydreamed backseat adventures

with girls who’d never acknowledge them,
and counted hours, and counted hours,
while clippings weighted tile floors like snowstorms

piled high as our shelves flaunting those book spines
on a slight tilt—dominoes that won’t drop.
And we lose ourselves in the words, those words,

can’t speak the story inside the story,
of how they made thought, and counted hours,
and counted hours—so we can think it.

:: Mindi Kirchner, Song of the Rest of Us (2009)

Dancing After Work

It’s happy hour still,
the black and white
floor beneath you
like an impossible game of checkers
you can’t stop playing,
while shadow puppets
reflect biceps that gesture
and curl into something
like smiles split under
the burdens of twelve-hour
shifts spent loading
and unloading all these things
that could never be yours,
but you carried them anyway.
Now’s the time to let it go.
Tilt the brim of your hat
like a wink toward a beautiful
woman, just enough to
exude swagger, then bend
your arms, a little awkward
at first, and shake wildly into
a festive chicken cluck
of total disregard.
You need to sense this
deep in your workman’s marrow,
tear out the parts of yourself
that still feel, like your feet,
a black boot sidestep
quick enough to take flight.
You need to understand this motion;
the carefree strut of your grin,
or a full-bodied slant to a friend
extended to anyone worn threadbare
and beyond this, where the body serves
no other purpose
but to follow the rhythm,
follow the rhythm,
and dance.

:: Mindi Kirchner, Song of the Rest of Us (2009)