<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</SPAN></span>
<h2 class="nobreak">STEEL-MILLS: SOUTH CHICAGO</h2>
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<div class="stanza">
<div class="versecenter">I</div>
</div>
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<div class="verse">This red hush toppling over the sky,</div>
<div class="verse">Wanders one step toward the stars</div>
<div class="verse">And dies in a questioning shiver.</div>
<div class="verse">The steel-mill chimneys fling their gaunt seeking</div>
<div class="verse">A little distance into the red</div>
<div class="verse">That softly combs their smoky hair.</div>
<div class="verse">The steel-mill chimneys only live at night</div>
<div class="verse">When crimson light makes love to them</div>
<div class="verse">And star-light trickles through the red,</div>
<div class="verse">Like glimpses of some far-off fairy tale.</div>
<div class="verse">Throughout the day the steel-mill chimneys stand</div>
<div class="verse">Rigidly within the wind-whirled glare:</div>
<div class="verse">Only night can bring them supple straightness.</div>
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<div class="versecenter">II</div>
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<div class="verse">From the little, brown gate that does not see them</div>
<div class="verse">Because its eyes are blind with wooing soot,</div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</SPAN></span>
<div class="verse">An endless stream of men scatters out</div>
<div class="verse">Into the cool bewilderment of morning.</div>
<div class="verse">Upon their lips a limply child-like surrender</div>
<div class="verse">Curves out to the light, as though they felt</div>
<div class="verse">The presence of an unassuming strangeness.</div>
<div class="verse">The morning hides from their eyes:</div>
<div class="verse">They walk on, in great strides,</div>
<div class="verse">Like blind men swinging over a well-known scene.</div>
<div class="verse">Their faces twitch with echoes of iron fists:</div>
<div class="verse">Their faces hold a swarthy stupor</div>
<div class="verse">Loosened by little fingers of morning light</div>
<div class="verse">Until it droops into reluctant life.</div>
<div class="verse">And then their eyes, made flat by night,</div>
<div class="verse">Swell into a Madonna-like surprise</div>
<div class="verse">At children trooping back in huge disguise.</div>
<div class="verse">The oranges in lunch-room windows change</div>
<div class="verse">To sleek suns dipped in sleepy light,</div>
<div class="verse">And rounded tarts in china plates</div>
<div class="verse">Are like red heart-beats, resting but not dead.</div>
<div class="verse">A trolley-car speeds by</div>
<div class="verse">And seems a strident lyric of motion.</div>
<div class="verse">Wagons rumble down the street</div>
<div class="verse">Like drums enticing weariness to step....</div>
<div class="verse">The hearts of these steel-striding men</div>
<div class="verse">Ascend and blend within their eyes,</div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</SPAN></span>
<div class="verse">And yet, these men are unaware of this.</div>
<div class="verse">They only feel a fluid relief</div>
<div class="verse">Voicing, in a clustered roar,</div>
<div class="verse">The cries of struggling thoughts unshaped by words.</div>
<div class="verse">But there are some who break forth from the rest.</div>
<div class="verse">This old Hungarian strides along</div>
<div class="verse">And binds naïvely-winged prayer-sandals</div>
<div class="verse">Upon the heavy feet of shuffling loves.</div>
<div class="verse">Gently, he plays with his beard</div>
<div class="verse">As though his fingers touched a woman’s hair.</div>
<div class="verse">And this young Slav whose surly blasphemy</div>
<div class="verse">Curls his face into a simple hate,</div>
<div class="verse">Has taken iron into his laugh</div>
<div class="verse">And uses it to hew his stony mind.</div>
<div class="verse">While this Italian whose deep olive skin</div>
<div class="verse">Shines like sunlight groping through dense leaves,</div>
<div class="verse">Forgets his battered happiness</div>
<div class="verse">And bows with mock grace to his shouting day.</div>
<div class="verse">Beside him is a fellow-countryman</div>
<div class="verse">Walking aimless, dazed with joy of motion.</div>
<div class="verse">Upon his face a glistening vacancy</div>
<div class="verse">Lights the mildly querying thoughts</div>
<div class="verse">That seek each other but never meet.</div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</SPAN></span>
<div class="verse">Behind him steps a stalwart Pole</div>
<div class="verse">Whose rhythmic, stately insolence</div>
<div class="verse">Turns the sidewalk into a grey carpet,</div>
<div class="verse">Grey as the shades that race across his face</div>
<div class="verse">And show the savage squalor of his soul.</div>
<div class="verse">Night has broken her heart upon him,</div>
<div class="verse">Only scarring his bitter smile.</div>
<div class="verse">A street of little, jack-o’-lantern houses</div>
<div class="verse">Veering into leering saloons,</div>
<div class="verse">Where the night, a crazy child,</div>
<div class="verse">Dips herself in sallow rouge</div>
<div class="verse">And chases oaths and heavy mirth</div>
<div class="verse">And even human beings:</div>
<div class="verse">Where the smoky sadness of the steel-mills</div>
<div class="verse">Wanders hesitantly into death</div>
<div class="verse">And drops a ghostly blur upon this girl.</div>
<div class="verse">Her numbly waxen, cherub face</div>
<div class="verse">Emerges gently from the doorway’s blackness</div>
<div class="verse">As though the dark had given birth to it.</div>
<div class="verse">And then the falling light reveals</div>
<div class="verse">That something of a village hangs about her:</div>
<div class="verse">Something slumbering and ample.</div>
<div class="verse">The doorway is too small to hold</div>
<div class="verse">Her shoulders that are like a hill’s broad curves</div>
<div class="verse">Dwindled in the distance....</div>
<div class="verse">She is one of many earth-curved girls</div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</SPAN></span>
<div class="verse">Who listened to the insistent tinkle</div>
<div class="verse">Of wind-winged music from a far-off land:</div>
<div class="verse">Listened and knew not</div>
<div class="verse">That their own hearts faintly played.</div>
<div class="verse">So she ran to this far phantom,</div>
<div class="verse">Only finding it within herself</div>
<div class="verse">When the city’s sly fists rained upon it.</div>
<div class="verse">Then once more she fled</div>
<div class="verse">With a dead heart whose restless pallor</div>
<div class="verse">Crept to squalid wantonness, for refuge.</div>
<div class="verse">And now she stands within this doorway,</div>
<div class="verse">Uttering muffled innuendoes</div>
<div class="verse">To the drained men of her race.</div>
<div class="verse">Yet, something of a village hangs about her:</div>
<div class="verse">Something slumbering and ample</div>
<div class="verse">Stealing from the earth curves of her shoulders.</div>
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<div class="versecenter">III</div>
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<div class="verse">The steel-mill workers straggle down this street,</div>
<div class="verse">Clanging shut the doorways of their souls,</div>
<div class="verse">And the sound rips their lips open.</div>
<div class="verse">The steel-mill workers do not know of this:</div>
<div class="verse">They only seek something that will sweeten</div>
<div class="verse">The dirt that has eaten into their flesh</div>
<div class="verse">And change it to raw music.</div>
<div class="verse">They straggle down this street,</div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</SPAN></span>
<div class="verse">Their faces slack and oiled with amorousness.</div>
<div class="verse">Like cats they play with their desires,</div>
<div class="verse">Biting them with little laughs</div>
<div class="verse">Until the sallow houses draw them in.</div>
<div class="verse">And then the night pursues their revelry:</div>
<div class="verse">Echoes from the shut doors of their souls.</div>
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<div class="versecenter">IV</div>
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<div class="verse">Three bent women and a child</div>
<div class="verse">Stoop before the steel-mill gate</div>
<div class="verse">As though the morning’s ghastly murmur</div>
<div class="verse">Washed against them in a wave</div>
<div class="verse">Stiffening them into resisting curves.</div>
<div class="verse">One is old and floridly misshapen.</div>
<div class="verse">Years have melted out within her frame,</div>
<div class="verse">Flooding her with lukewarm loves.</div>
<div class="verse">The wrinkles on her flabby face</div>
<div class="verse">Are like a faded scrawl of pain</div>
<div class="verse">Scattered by the flesh on which it rests.</div>
<div class="verse">Her frayed shawl hanging unaware of her</div>
<div class="verse">Is a symbol of her heart.</div>
<div class="verse">The woman standing at her side</div>
<div class="verse">Is tall and like a slanting scarecrow</div>
<div class="verse">Coldly jerking in the morning’s glare.</div>
<div class="verse">Only when she lifts a bony hand</div>
<div class="verse">Tapping life against her face,</div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</SPAN></span>
<div class="verse">Does the image disappear.</div>
<div class="verse">Dead dreams dangle in her heart,</div>
<div class="verse">Limply hanging from their rainbow sashes,</div>
<div class="verse">And whenever one sash trembles,</div>
<div class="verse">Then, she lifts a gnarled hand to her face</div>
<div class="verse">And tastes a moment of departing life.</div>
<div class="verse">Near her stands a slimly rigid woman</div>
<div class="verse">With an iron fear upon her bones.</div>
<div class="verse">A worn strait-jacket of lines</div>
<div class="verse">Cuts the dying youth upon her face.</div>
<div class="verse">The slender child beside her,</div>
<div class="verse">Buried within staidly murky clothes,</div>
<div class="verse">Glances frightenedly up at her mother:</div>
<div class="verse">Glances as one who dances to a gate</div>
<div class="verse">And fumbles for a latch that hides itself.</div>
<div class="verse">Then from the rusty-reveried steel-mill gate</div>
<div class="verse">An endless stream of men scatter out</div>
<div class="verse">Into the cool bewilderment of morning.</div>
<div class="verse">Upon their lips a limply child-like surrender</div>
<div class="verse">Curves out to the light, as though they felt</div>
<div class="verse">The presence of an unassuming strangeness.</div>
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