John C. Stupp: A Flower Once

It came

into the foundry

on someone’s boot

to die alone

in August

as we did

it was not the prettiest flower

but yellow

for a minute

it stood out

brighter than a furnace

before the petals tore off

I was the one who noticed

I was the one not concentrating

on the job at hand

on the cores moving in front of me

lift and stack

lift and stack

I was young

my arms were tired

there were men next to me

up and down the line

moving in unison

for 20 years

like flowers pressed on the floor

preserved forever in this book.

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Copyright 2016 John Stupp

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Steel Worker in Foundry by Luke Swank. Photograph taken probably in 1934 at Bethlehem Steel’s Franklin Mills, Johnstown, PA. Courtesy of the Carnegie Museum of Art