Philip Levine, "Ecorse Days"

The music of the drill press
is not music at all: steel
into steel, then the abrupt
crack of the bit and the stock
flawed. Quit or start again.

We’re talking 1951,
the long summer that stretched
into October before
the autumn rains brought leaves
cascading down from the oak—

the only tree within miles—
the one thing spring greened outside
the loading dock of Leo’s
Tool & Die as though to say,once
and for all, Life thrives here, too!

I heard the message and I
heard wrong. Every hour dulled there,
for every hour was the hour
just passed and the one to come
without rhythm or flavor.

What I made was what I made
the week before. We called it
money, we measured the hours
in dollars, all twenty-four
operators grinding in time.


Philip Levine

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