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| Adobe stock photo |
in the smoke and the clang
of Duquesne Works' No. 6 Bar Mill,
a young husband, night student,
helmeted, goggled, gauntleted,
an oiler, son of a failed-artist-roller,
cast the long shadow of a steelworker
over the blur of the 30-foot wheel
into the grease of the abyss
under the speeding ropes
that drove the great rolls
as rebar snaked through its trough,
neon and lethal.
His father, too, dreamed artists' dreams.
On payday they knew it meant little.
