for the cold, and for the frozen strikers, breath
stacked on breath like yesterday’s placards; car-horn
stabs the nearest gruff and angry voice like it’s
xxxxxxxa heart;

say depth of winter but mean shallow. I want
to hear the stories told on crankier and crankier
bones of loftier and loftier aims but
the conversation sinks to sex snicker,
tits and ass like more money
xxxxxxxin the pocket;

I want to hear the stories of causes stripped to bare
knuckle like color in the dank woods. I want to see
men stopping the company truck with their extended
palm. The virtue of death is solidarity,
is redemption. Jeer the scabs falling
from the semi wheel of the jaundiced winter
xxxxxxxsun;

rise up on the sinking mercury; say depth of
feeling but mean hardness of the veins,
ideas breaking up like beads of sweat, rolling
off brows before they can ice over