Beasts and Violins

Machined Parts to Monroe

30 Machined Parts to Monroe I stop off in buildings where the sinks have all been yanked from the walls, and the toilets are covered in a fine gray silt. Constant trains close the highway behind me like an automatic gate. At one warehouse compound there are fifty doors in a U-shape, with a car park in the center, but none of the doors are ever open and there is never a soul in the lot. I stand in the rain and knock. When someone answers, smoke chugs from the dark and I step past water buckets full of butts, to hand over boxes for signatures. The parts roll away on a conveyor into the green light at the back of the shop, to be plated or powder-coated. I take my clipboard and go. The fields in winter are a backwater lake too shallow to be piloted. Driving the highway, I see the only new things are dents in the guard rails, because the placement of the speed cops never changes. Wherever I stop, the crapped-out van leaks red transmission fluid onto snow, as if a rabbit had been slaughtered there 31 just before I arrived. I don’t dust anything over it. I don’t jab my boot to shovel any melt. ...