Volume One Issue Two
Ryan A. Bunch
At the Graveyard
He stares at the paper factory across the street.
It caught fire again last month.
An angel walks from Chicago to Cleveland,
to Detroit and Toledo,
holding industry with burning fists
trying to preserve it, or inspire it,
to make those old stacks smoke again,
dry that pulp back to paper or water.
He taps his steel-toed boot on busted concrete,
a hole worn right to the metal.
Ghosts of twelve-hour work days —
uncles, fathers, sons and brothers,
the man the town square is named for —
trickle like smoke from a hole in the wall
above a heap of crumbled brick.
He doesn't see me on the bench next to him,
but he sees the fire that put us here.
He tips his hat slightly and I feel
the warmth inside him blow over me.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.