Dubuque Plant: Memorial

There, still, is the bent tricycle,
wheel’s hard-pocked rubber worn rough and gray
so dull hurt can rub into thin skin,
raw, tense, transparent.

Gummy kernels of Dog Chow
litter the yard alongside Tonka trucks
scattered in fluorescent yellow shards,
the quiet afterburn of childish arguments.

But this is all.
The voices are gone
like the leering tricks dispensed upon
the small, sallow boy who wore
thick glasses, bucked teeth, stuttering tongue.

Things are not the same now:
A rusted-out refinery where crows
announce the shape of the day is spiraled,
twisting slowly down, eyes closed.