Determined eyes. Chiseled granite.
Men full of strength. Sycamore
trees with arms; skin of mules and rigid
steeled hands. Their youth bottle necked
with fights and chain link fence. Clapboard
shacks leaned with time. Clothes were coal
smoke soaked. Dust was the life of everything.
It was a place of bold brassy men with beer driven
slurs and work on their shirts as they
stumbled home.
And when the rain came it washed the
worst clean, with a shine of temporary hope.
Winter snow covered the rust and rubble
until spring weeds filled in the cracks.
Roger Singer 