All That It Takes

 

1.

The lawnmower-switch factory uses

tiny springs. Much smaller than any other

spring you have ever seen—of that, I am certain,

the circumference of your pupil

staring at sunlit concrete, the length of half

a paperclip—five per switch.

We go through each cramped finger

aligning them as fast as we can.


2.

We beat bundles of labels against tables

until they fanned into plastic (or paper) rainbows—

Tide, Dynamo, Wisk, Snuggles...

Linda must have taken some amphetamines

with teeth that day because she kept cutting

and shoving labels at the packers.

The music changed to death metal.

It is not that her hair grows fast—long, sweaty strands

snaking through the fan breeze—

but that time really passes too quickly.


3.

When the handmade lampshade factory closed

the women did their best to wear

the fanciest pair of blue jeans.

But some of the men walked too far ahead

and their boots filled with sand. Turning to glass—

they became transparent, crackling along Lake Michigan,

fires burned right inside them—their hearts like little grenades.

 

 

 

 

Susan Yount lives on the side of Chicago; works at the Associated Press; pursues her MFA in poetry at Columbia College and edits the Arsenic Lobster Poetry Journal. A short story of hers most recently appeared in the Barn Owl Review and poems in the Columbia Poetry Review.