Pittsburgh Lament

The sound of a switch engine
working the stockyards at night
is like a lullaby humming in my ears.
My taste is for carbon and oil.
The burnt scent of an overheated clutch
is a heady perfume, as magnetic
as the musk of a woman’s desire.
The feel of polished ceramics
caressed by a calloused hand,
is sensuous, arousing,
like stroking the velvety tiny fuzz
along the nape of a woman’s neck.
My eye seeks the symmetry
of bolted parts, disparate shapes joined
like petal, pistil and stamen,
into beauty.

These are lost now,
merely echoes.
Instead, some foreign hand trembles
with the torque of a wrench,
his heart beating in rhythm with
the whirr of generators,
his nostrils flaring with the pungent odor
of lubricated metal and friction.

There are metal shavings in my blood
and my soul withers, unrequited,
another man with a strange accent
making love to what once was,
what still should be, my job.

The title to this one is difficult. I first called it "NAFTA." The current title, "Pittsburgh Lament" is to pay homage to my origins and my father's generation. It's one of those "middle of the night" affairs - the memory of living next to a railroad stockyard, the sounds and smells of my youth, keeping me awake far into the foggy dawn last night.