The Fire Landscape: Poems

Because It Was Always Summer

Because It Was Always Summer Because it was always summer when work Was measured for me by the union’s scale, Because I believed school would end my shift For good, I punched out and stood among men Years older and waited for those strangers To decide the afternoon’s direction. Since seven o’clock, in sterilizing, I’d worked with them at Heinz, a fog of steam Forming and fading through measured cycles That protected whoever ate the soup Condensed inside a hundred thousand cans. Always the same men talked, and the same men Nodded or shook their heads, swallowing shots And downing chasers from glasses before They lifted their eyes to the bartender Who knew their signals like an auctioneer. There wasn’t a TV or a juke box, Just men who wanted to talk or listen Or be left alone, knowing whoever Was on screen or a record could care less About men who worked with their hands and backs. The dog that roamed that after-work tavern Knew enough not to beg for bits of bun Or hamburger, that even a dog should Act as if it needed nothing, because 71 P 1FINCKE_pages.qxd 5/21/08 9:31 AM Page 71 It would come, eventually, like crumbs. I waited weeks to say something about Myself, what college was, a way to work Without wearing a boss like a stiff suit. The dog lifted its head to my new voice; A man two stools from mine said, “Fuck college.” July kept passing outside. A bus hissed And collected three men who left a space Near the door. The rest of us were driving, Deciding two things for ourselves, the when Of leaving and what we would listen to After we pointed our cars toward some part Of Pittsburgh, selecting which stranger’s voice Might comfort us while we worked our way home. p72 1FINCKE_pages.qxd 5/21/08 9:31 AM Page 72 ...