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Bill Roberts |
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WELDING My apprenticeship as a welder lasted half that summer when I learned to chew tobacco, spit with alarming accuracy, swig black coffee from a mug never once cleaned, chug cheap beer after hours when we worked on each other's cars, hum to country music, the words more hillbilly than western, listen rather than talk, talk thought to be a girlish trait, drive a stick-shift truck, climb inside a dead hotel boiler still not completely cooled, cut out its rusted tubes, breathe unfiltered air full of killer chemicals I'd study in a few years, tune in to men denigrating women, relegating them to drinking partners and sexual objects, spend half their week's salary on booze, screw away their weekends, shuffle in silently Mondays to restart the tedious, predictable process. The last half of the summer I spent reconditioning my dulled, disunited spirit. I never did learn to weld a damn thing. TRAVELING BACK BY TRAIN We board the cobalt blue freight car Awaiting us with open doors in the museum. It is on a single set of tracks, Anchored in place, going nowhere. But so much history it tells As we venture on it to the past, Seeing shadowy figures boarding against Their will, at the insistence of guards, Who just months previously worked earnestly As postmen, gardeners, butchers, draftsmen, Now resolutely accepting no fares, Offering no advice or assurances, making certain Doors are closed and securely locked After terrified travelers are jammed Inside for the agonizing journey To a camp advertising Work makes one free, Deep inside Poland or Germany where, Eventually, survivors of the ride stumble off, Groaning, into foul clouds of thick smog, Choking, billowing from tall smokestacks. Our journey is solely in the imagination. Theirs, alas, was all too real. [Index] |
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Thunder Sandwich #26 - Summer/Fall 2005 |
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