1930 (My Dad’s First Job)

I walk, two hundred feet
     From the whitened highway
     And the headlights reflecting
     The morning snow,
Dreaming of empty streets,
     Of dawns without snowplows
                      and salt;
Of a simpler time,
     More painful,
     Walking over deep-snowed roads,
          Stranded vehicles in a line;
Clattering chains of some truck
     Breaking silence
  ---Romance of twenty cars
     Lined
     To enter First Street Garage,
     To have tire chains attached,
          Free ---
Free, in the name of good business,
     By a dollar per day employee,
In the simple times,
     When simple people
          Simply starved
And worked,
            for almost nothing.
 

2/6/79

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