it is a warm spring afternoon
in the politically drunk 1950s
in the little Virginia mill town
stuck like a bird’s nest
in the fork that splits
the James and Appomattox rivers
both rivers slapping their mouths
together in a rough wet kiss
churning and swirling the tide
around the high banks of City Point
inheriting their tidal swoon and sway
from the inland Chesapeake Bay
the mighty Atlantic beyond
back and forth back and forth
rocking the wide-eyed fish to sleep
night and day day and night
day shift swing and graveyard
sweeping the mills’ filth
across the river bottom
where catfish eat anything
including the poisons made
and dumped by the refined evil men
who write the checks for cotton
chemicals labor and local elections
my Daddy is dirty
from the day shift’s deprecations
the familiar brown khaki shirt and pants
the industrial uniform unconformed
by the jaunty blue striped
engineer’s cap cocked rakishly
to the side of his head
his black lunchbox carried
under his arm like a symbolic football
the last remnant of his boyhood dream
of a college football career
lost for the itinerant carpenter’s son
graduated from high school
top of his class in 1929
when the sound of the crash
was still ringing in America’s ears
anybody who could still hear
was lucky to be working at all then
and lucky for him the mill was there
and now twenty-five years later
he’s lost most of his wavy black hair
and he’s still walking home
every day from the mill
standing straight and tall
brave and unbent by the weight
of the years and tears of toil
his gentle hands a calloused witness
to the numbing repetitive rote
the dangerous clank and rhythmic grind
the endless metallic whine
of piston flywheel and gear
the windsock omen of chlorine leak
the siren’s wail of all clear
the generator’s unholy heat
the unblinking glare in the eyes
of the sado-dominant apes
swearing their orders like
mercenaries of corrosive capital
the acid bath of usury
the interest rate of flesh
the fair market price of a man’s soul
the chain link fence of the mill
the borders of a man’s life
a penitentiary of class
where the first will never be last
and the last will always be cursed
this is the shape of his fate
not to create but to fellate
not to escape the rape
but somehow he remains
as proud as the truth
as proud as the truth of himself
a prophet in a slaughterhouse
burning like an ember
in a fire that won’t die
with a look of cool passion
in the brown of his eyes
a plug of Beech-Nut chew
bulging his jaw like a sick tooth
but not for long cause Mama
don’t like it she don’t like it
so he’ll spit it out before
he reaches home cause he loves
that woman more than he loves
his own life he loves that woman
so he spits out the chaw
by the Baptist Church there
on the corner of Randolph Boulevard
where the workers and their families
every Sunday sit and listen
as Preacher Stevens preaches heaven
in this little piece of hell
and his mind wanders away
under the aromatic spell
of spring sunshine glancing
through the perfumed air
of crape myrtle trees blooming
down the center of the boulevard
the sweet intense smell
reminding him of boyhood in the spring
in the mountains of East Tennessee
just a barefoot hillbilly kid
back before the war
back before the mills
back before his own father hacked
and coughed himself to death
the cigarette smoke and cancer
squeezing the air from his lungs
back before the village of shacks
built by the company coffers
to house the happy workers
nameless and numbered
row by row street by street
architectural cloning of
tarpaper roofs and shake siding
this particular house
in this particular row
on a street near the smell
of the rivers’ sad roiling
bought by the sweat of his back
remodeled refurbished by his hands
transformed like a sinner to a saint
into the happy modest home
with a whitewashed picket fence
like a mother’s arms surrounding
the fresh mowed spring lawn
that a young boy and a dog play on
waiting for Daddy waiting
waiting for Daddy to come home
the dog sensing him first
with a dog’s knowing
the specific height of the sun
in the sky in the eye of the dog
or a change of wind direction
wafting to the sensitive dog nose
what the dog knows
the particular day shift sweat
of this particular man
as he turns down second street
and heads now for the river
the dog stands up looks to the boy
barks and moves to the gate
to wait for the whistle
my Daddy will sound in just a moment
as he comes around the hedge
and hears my sudden cry of
Daddy Daddy Daddy’s home
the dog barking and prancing now
and I jump into Daddy’s arms
as he lifts me to the sunny sky
a moment I will remember
until the day I lay
my body down and die
when my Daddy died too young
we all knew he was murdered
by the mill he had given his life to
they never broke his spirit
though daily they had tried
and as my Mama cried in my arms
we all knew where the cancer came from
the chemicals at the mill he’d breathed
into his lungs for decades the cancer rate
among the highest in the state
in the little Virginia mill town
stuck like an abandoned bird’s nest
in the fork of two angelic rivers
polluted now with ammonia dye
and deadly insecticide Kepone
Kepone settling forever
into the murky muck
of the rivers’ black bottom
oozing its way fifty miles
to the Chesapeake Bay
into the flesh of fish and babies
cynical bumper stickers reading
Kepone trucking Kepone trucking
keep on trucking cause the town
was the mills and the mills
was the money and the money
was the death of my old man
and Mama too dying of cancer
ten years later and me and Sis
with three cancers between us so far
so far away so long ago now
and me now looking in the mirror
and seeing my Daddy looking back
his beautiful brown soulful eyes
full of tears still proud of his boy
holding me up to the sky still
in spite of the goddamn mills
I escaped because of their sacrifice
in spite of the ways I sabotaged
the life they gave me to live
and me now flummoxed and lost
half a century old a continent
away from the soil of my roots
not knowing exactly who I am
what to do with my prodigal life
standing before the dark polluted rivers
of my own soul seeking to cross
to build a bridge a boat a raft
with my own uncalloused hands
the shape of my own fate to create
and my Daddy looks back
from the mirror he looks back
my Daddy looks back now
into my eyes and with my lips
he says out loud these words
do
whatever it takes
to be
you
About the author: T. S. Davis is a retired Registered Nurse who lives in a small town in Southeast Arizona where he writes memoir, essays, and poetry. His publications include the New York Times, Scientific American, Blue Collar Review, Rattle, and Amethyst Review, among many others. He is author of a book of poems, Sun + Moon Rendezvous.