Men at the Gates -- Gary L. Lark

(Poem #71)Men at the Gates They wait at the gates in flannel shirts and heavy denim pants. They wait for the gates to open, the whistle to blow signaling change of shift. They wait for the mill jobs to come back, with wages that will feed a family, wages to be proud of. They wait in the parking lot where one-stop-shoppers now, twenty-five years later, look through them like ghosts. They wait in a rain of gadgets and plunder, companies from somewhere else picking their pockets trying to sell them everything they don't need at bargain prices. They wait for the world  to make sense again, where calluses grow on your hands and the soreness in your back means you're worth a damn.  -- Gary L. Lark