smelter

they had a family day at the factory where,
from a safe distance, the children would watch
as our fathers demonstrated their horrors.
molten lead. glowing orange & crimson.
dead of winter. catered cookies in a pavilion.
one of the other children said, "i want to be
a skeleton when i grow up just like my father."
unprompted in the silence of our walk
from building to building, dad said, "this is a good job." 
when is labor is the process 
of becoming someone else? 
a breeze off the mountain. around the little city,
fields ached like fresh wounds. smells of pig farm winter.
shit & screaming. once, dad told me a story
of a man who fell into a vat of hot lead.
his body caught fire instantly. he was turned into 
only a tongue. then, also, the morning dad found
the body of another man mangled on the side of the road
on the way to work. a motorcycle accident. 
bodies becoming energy. light. fire. bone.
as a child i thought the smelter was a monster.
doors like jaws. it swallowed my father 
every day & every night. other men 
with missing fingers. acid burns. putting
one of the chocolate chip cookies 
from the buffet into my pocket to eat later.
how we find those footprints of sugar.
follow them into each other's ribs.