Watching Sculls
When I was a boy
my father and I
would drive into
through Sovay,
on the shores of
World wars had left
their industrial thumbprint
in crucible of steel mills,
chemical industry.
Solvay Process,
a chemical plant
known throughout the Northeast
for its soda ash
stood canker-lipping
a topography
white as sea gull droppings.
Lines of barges
with mountainous ash heaps
bound for the lake’s heart
to dump absolute waste
into
Over this moonscape
across cyanotic water
Crew was being held.
Putrid air
filled our lungs
as we watched sculls.
© 2005 Dan Kantak
All Rights Reserved
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