by Jacob Kramer
My thoughts once were wild men,
strong and tan in the fields.
When they hunted, it was for dinner
and that made them proud.
At sun-down they lay near me;
slept with strung bows and ready limbs,
and dreamt of tomorrow’s hunt.
Somewhere, I don’t know where,
I sold them into slavery:
one at a time,
whispered transactions,
always in night’s cloud:
so I wouldn’t see them shuffling
in chains, or their proud eyes
wavering.
Sometime, I don’t know when,
the fields were razed black
and a factory constructed.
My thoughts shuffled in:
hunchbacked line-workers
there to carry out the job.
But at 5—it was me left with shadows,
a dead conveyor belt
and a finished product at its end
that I couldn’t see through the darkness.
