A fuzzy structure there beside the road -
It proves to be the rib cage of the dead
Which nights before enclosed the heart and lungs
Of a creature on its errands dutiful

Gone now to buzzards and bacterial decay
On this, neither the Road to Damascus
Nor to Emmaus, and the Good Samaritan
Could have done nothing had he come along

It sinks into the dust, and so will we
Beneath the tire-treads of mortality

For us there is no Stray Dog Cabaret -
Our art burns at the end of a welding rod
And in the muscled turning of a wrench
In heat and sweat against a frozen bolt

Old work trucks parked in an oyster shell lot
Eaten with rust from the chemical air
And past the gates, cracking units, and tanks
A plywood paradise with ice-cold beer

Some of us work the night shift to pay our way
Through college, where we learn that we are

                                                             privileged

Never forget
we were never
the best,

merely place holders
for the atoms
in our flesh.