Dark figures of birds V west
over the smoke-capped stalks, miles
of starless sea-spouts of corn, verdant
soybean-broadloomed planes,
the broken skulls of barns. To enter,
I had to sign a promise
not to reveal what I saw: the rolling hills
of steel bits, hundred
feet high, some rusted to a fine mulch
color, others still lustrous,
silver-mountains of mermaid scales, mirror shards—
a pair of distant cranes,
praying mantis arms, groping the mounds,
Empty scrap cars snake through
to a twisted country, return laden, and disappear,
into the hot mill's crepuscular belly. The rest
is rumors of furnaces-stuff come flyin' out
like they thrown' rocks atcha—
acid tanks, accidents. But I am just a secretary
trailered on a gravel lot between the hot mill
and the cold mill, a message for the mill-black men
from their wives, something clean white,
a fresh cigarette. The smokestacks shoot their chalky seed
never-ending at the sun, or where the sun
should be, and when it is, stretched in the face of sheet metal
ready to be rolled and baled.