Pink Slip For a Generation

At the 5:00 whistle When the sunset in late November Is less light and more molten Like a blast-furnace window Glowing above the highway home Goo spilling from its sparkling ladle Bent At the off-ramp’s arthritic elbow The city smolders Under The backs and braces of its groaning bridges Like a half smoked cigarette Crushed under the heel of a boot An entire city is snuffed out. The Man, my father, comes to this setting sun As a welder Flipping down his black mask For his last day at work With stars still tracing cross his eyes And his factory-floor poems loose in his head Like nuts and bolts rattling in his toolbox. His visiting grandchildren Sent from the Coasts for Thanksgiving Clung like empty holsters to his massive thighs May someday think Grandpa, what did you do with your life? He wants to kill them Kill them all Lick his pink slip like a Christmas card envelope And hang himself With a drill Still Plugged into his whining hand But on his last day home With smokestacks steaming like gray volcanoes The sunset remains wondrous to him The Makar the Creator He envisions a flower molded from bronze Bloomed and shaped from his callused hands.