Exits

After parking my car in the East Lot, I head past the
guard post, past the security cameras, past the sign list-
ing the number of days since the last work-loss accident,
stuck at 29 for weeks. Then into the locker room, with
its large round sinks, and the hand cleaner that looks and
feels like sawdust, and the old battered lockers, and the
first whiff of the dark smell of grease.

The plant has its own hospital, its own store, its own
railroad, its own streets, a main cafeteria and five satel-
lites. I got lost the first few times just trying to find my
way out at shift change. Once I ended up at the wrong
doors, the ones that go from noise and grit and darkness
to clean, bright, quiet offices where people dress nice
and talk to each other in normal voices. Heads turned.
I turned, back into the black noise. Lost.

:: Jim Daniels, Punching Out

Glove / Hand

The hands have trouble being naked.

The hand has trouble with the pen.

In the gloves the fingers do not feel
hot or cold or sharp.
The gloves make the hands
part of a machine.

The gloved hand is a paw,
an awkward, swiping thing.

Without claws.
The glove gets the job done.
The hand has little to say.

:: Jim Daniels, Punching Out

Cry Room, St. Mark's Church

In the back behind smudged glass we sat
with three other mothers and their kids.
No one was in fact crying. Or reciting
prayers. We could have been looking in

the window of the A & P or K-Mart. I was old
enough not to consider crying an option.
My little sister crawled beneath the kneeler
and fell asleep. I crouched awkward in the pew.

To be caught in the cry room—I wouldn’t hear
the end of it. Everyone stared down the usher
when he came in to shake his collection basket

under our noses. 1963. I’d made my first
communion and begun saving my best lies
for the confessional booth. A room for sins.
A room to cry in. I watched my mother’s head

loll back, snap forward. Why were we there?
Was someone going to bring us yet another
baby to take home? One woman entered late
and sat in the last of the four pews, wedging

herself into the corner to sob uncontrollably.
Other mothers stared out the window
at the muffled mass as if waiting for the good parts.
Mine sighed and yanked us up and out

of there. We walked home in a fluster of spring wind.
I was hungry for a doughnut or two. Glazed,
sticky in the flimsy cardboard box with the see-through
plastic window. Did we stay long enough for it to count?
I asked. My mother carried my sister in one arm

and puffed on a cigarette with the fervor
of the newly-converted. We passed the Powder
Puff hair salon and the boarded up Dairy Queen
and the ill-fated slot-car track and the ditch

they found Larry Jarman in. I didn’t cry then
and I’m not crying now. God—you had to love
the dude. God, not Larry. It might’ve been Larry’s
mother crying in the back. Or Mary Magdalene’s

distant niece. Or the victim of another immaculate
conception. All I know is that I bugged my mother
into a frenzy till she bought the doughnuts
at Oaza bakery near the drive-thru car wash

and threw the box at me and told me to shut up.
My older brothers had lied about going to early
mass. I don’t know where they went, but they wouldn’t
take me with them. My mother believed in miracles

and my sleeping father believed in the almighty dollar
and the nearly almighty cents. I at e two doughnuts
before we got home. The sweet glaze stuck to my lips
and face. I confess to a smile and a taunting boogaloo

on the sidewalk as my brothers raced out the door
to snatch the box. My mother dropped my sister
onto the stoop, then fell to the dead brown grass
and smiled her own wistful boogaloo. You had to love him

or hate him or pretend or believe he didn’t exist. The cry
room stunk with soiled diapers and sweat. The hymnals
had pages ripped out, drooled and doodled on. The truth
was elusive. Why would he want criers in a separate room?

What about a room for laughers? No one laughed
in church. Even when the priest—any priest—tried out
a joke. Are there any good jokes that don’t have a cruelty
to them? Cigarettes weren’t as good as I imagined.

We haunted ourselves in the reflection of the cry room glass.
My tiny grandmother in her tiny room watched “Mass
for Shut-ins” on her tiny TV. She might have been crying,
depending on the pain. She was my second death after Larry.

Nobody explained about Larry till I was old enough
to understand. The church stretched yellow police tape
around our lives like those in fancy stores where you couldn’t
touch a thing. Usually, some kid started bawling, but not that day.

Oh, the sweetness of the glaze,
and how the greed made my mother smile.

:: Jim Daniels, in Green Mountains Review (18:2, 2005)

Midnight Ramble

This is the middle class, lower. The tree in the yard.

Bushes in front of the house. Flowers in the yard. Lawn

mowers growling. Dogs barking. Lots of dogs. Every-

body has one, for safety, and they keep them locked up

in their yards where they bark and bark behind their

fences because no one ever takes them for a walk. Ice

cream men. Lawn chairs. And beer and beer bellies and

white paint on trim and brick and a hose at the side of

the house. Squares, everything squares. Sidewalks and

lawns and porches and houses and brains. TV sets. Gar-

age sales and telephone poles. Kids sell kool-aid in sum-

mer, shovel snow in winter. Till they’re old enough to

smoke and drink and raise hell. They get a couple years

of that, then it’s factory time. Always one lawn mower

going. Because everyone on this street works in a fac-

tory and they’re all on different shifts. Maybe they

communicate through their lawns, waking me here in

the dark, damp basement. The young guys in the fac-

tory say they’re not going to work there the rest of

their lives. Just ‘temporary.’ The old guys laugh at that.

They say Temporary my ass.

:: Jim Daniels, Punching Out

Old Green

Old Green stops to say goodbye,
retiring after 43 years.
No green coveralls today.
Dressed in street clothes
hair slicked back
he even manages a shy smile
as I shake his hand.

The Company gave him an aerial photo
of the plant, and all the guys
sign their names around it
and Good luck.
All you can see is the roof
and the parking lots
and the tiny, tiny cars.
As hard as you look
you’ll never find him.

:: Jim Daniels, Punching Out

Wonder

Wonder Bread builds strong bodies twelve ways

We toured the Wonder Bread factory
our blue and yellow scout uniforms jittering down
the drab aisles of hum and clang.

At the end of the line, we were allowed
our taste of Detroit's assembly-line communion.
Our first factory, and not our last.

The workers silent as we passed,
staring over our heads numb
with what they could not share.

In their own uniforms, bare of arrows
and awards, they disappeared into white bread.
When I got on the bus to go home

all I could think about was the smell
of warm bread emerging from giant ovens.
In the stores, the white loaves

covered in balloon-patterned plastic wrappers.
What were the twelve ways?
My friend stroked his cheek with a warm slice,

his eyes closed. Wouldn't it be great
to work here? he said. When we toured the Stroh's
Brewery years later, he said the same thing.

They offered no tours of auto plants
yet that was where we ended up, parking
our first cars in the enormous lined lots

fenced in, protected. Wouldn't it be
great if communion tasted like this?
Tony said. Or maybe I just thought it.

At home, my mother baked bread
on rare occasions, her misshapen
yeasty loaves waiting in the kitchen

after school. It tasted great
while warm, straight from the oven.
But it hardened quickly, the odd

shapes not practical for sandwiches,
and she made at least a dozen every night
for school and work lunches,

an assembly line of peanut butter
and jelly, bologna and mustard,
brown paper bags initialed

for morning sendoffs. That bakery
is now the Motor City Casino,
and that's what started this--

imagining slots and chips
where bread was once made.
The brewery's gone too, by the way,

by the way, by the way, way side.
We all take communion
in our own twisted way, and we all

pay the price. When it rains, it only
sometimes pours. A money factory, what
could be purer and sicker?

I'm driving my car past that grand old factory,
a building saved by greed,
a rare Detroit victory against rubble.

Twelve ways. I hold up my three fingers
to recite the old scout oath. I make the sign
of the cross and recite the two prayers

I remember. What I remember is
you weren't supposed to chew.
Just swallow and take it on faith.

:: Jim Daniels, in Green Mountains Review (18:2, 2005)

Timers

A man with a stopwatch stares
at my hands, his thumb on the button.
He is timing how long it takes me
to take this part, put it in my machine,
push two buttons, take it out.

He is trying to eliminate my job.
But I take a second or two
to scratch my balls.
Got to allow time for that,
I wink at him.

He shakes his head,
his bright orange earplugs
wedged in tight.

I guess finally it’s not him
who decides. He seems reluctant
to meet my eyes, jotting quick notes
in the aisle.

Somebody somewhere’s got a watch
on him too. Somebody’s put us both here
where we can’t hear each other.

:: Jim Daniels, Punching Out (1990)

Chainsaw

My father cuts down random trees
in the woods around his trailer.

He says he’s making room
so some can get bigger.

He spent his life counting
auto parts and dollars

in the Controller’s office
at the Ford axle plant.

He holds a chainsaw in his hands.
My father took a demotion

so he would not have a heart attack
like the two guys who had the job

before him, Yeah, there really was
this guy called the Controller.

Is. Is this guy. My father’s got
a pretty good pension. Buys

himself a trailer in the woods
and a chainsaw. The woods,

they look okay to me, I tell him.
But what do I know. He’s got it

oiled and gassed, wrapped up
like a favorite gun. My father,

he’s standing there, intent
and serious, wondering

where to begin.

:: Jim Daniels, Night with Drive-By Shooting Stars

Short-order Cook

An average joe comes in
and orders thirty cheeseburgers and thirty fries.

I wait for him to pay before I start cooking.
He pays.
He ain’t no average joe.

The grill is just big enough for ten rows of three.
I slap the burgers down
throw two buckets of fries in the deep fryer
and they pop pop spit spit . . .
psss . . .
The counter girls laugh.
I concentrate.
It is the crucial point—
they are ready for the cheese:
my fingers shake as I tear off slices
toss them on the burgers/fries done/dump/
refill buckets/burgers ready/flip into buns/
beat that melting cheese/wrap burgers in plastic/
into paper bags/fries done/dump/fill thirty bags/
bring them to the counter/wipe sweat on sleeve
and smile at the counter girls.
I puff my chest out and bellow:
“Thirty cheeseburgers, thirty fries!”
They look at me funny.
I grab a handful of ice, toss it in my mouth
do a little dance and walk back to the grill.
Pressure, responsibility, success,
thirty cheeseburgers, thirty fries.

:: Jim Daniels, Places/Everyone

Mirage

We’re driving to visit my aunt and uncle
in Massachusetts when my father decides
he can’t drive anymore with five screaming kids
in the back so he jerks to a stop at a roadside motel.
In the car, we wait as he checks in,
the upholstery slick with sweat and drool
and the spittle of insult. Our first motel
ever. Behind us, the small pool glows
the blue of imagined clarity, a holy water font
with a diving board. None of us
is going to sleep, but for now,
we’re silent. Windows rolled down, chlorine
drifting in with the sting of money spent.
It’s all we remember: five of us lined up
on that diving board, saying our prayers.

:: Jim Daniels, Night with Drive-By Shooting Stars