flip a coin

they are trying to build
a new automated factory in my hometown.
the ceo says, "personless manufactoring"
into a room of money people & they
chatter & salivate. they are erecting 
this machine in the guts of an old foundry
that i used to sneak into as a kid. 
it's by the railroad that seldom runs anymore.
inside, the walls are stone & cool & damp.
where will the genderfuck kids go
to be weirdos without enough abandoned places?
i guess at least they still have the cemetery. 
these decisions always feel like 
flipped coins or magic eight balls or roulette 
for these people. my sibling asks me,
"do you think we will still be able
to drink the water?" the creek in town 
once ran dry. it was a drought summer 
& the dead fish looked like shoes. i do not
respond to them. instead, we go into the yard
beneath the pine tree & watch the squirrels 
get fat for winter. the developer is from
australia. what does he know about
a pennsylvania small town where the corn 
grows tall & the kids play in the graveyard?
i picture him in a tower, flipping coins.
his eyes, coins spinning. his teeth, trapped doors.
my father works in a factory up the street. 
i know what it is like to live with a factory
in the house. in the bathtub. in the ceiling.
i come from people who do not
flip coins. we burry them like the squirrels.
we harvest skunk cabbage by the creek
boil it three times. serve it with butter. 
my sibling asks me if i think the new automated factory
will work. i explain that it doesn't really
matter if it does. this man will dance in coins.
the trees will bend into corkscrews. 
we will shovel. find a new well. teach it how
to breathe again as best as we can.