Poems

By Claudia Stanek

The Queen Loses Her Steel

It was all about the Pennsylvanians
and their steel.
But the Queen City's forges
were freezing over like
Lake Erie in January,
shutting down the lake effect
as progress did the mills.

The TV networks didn't focus
their time on downtown Buffalo;
unemployment lines
curled around the block
like the aspirations of those waiting
at 2º below, their warm prayers
crystallizing in the Great Lake's exhale.

The government did good,
gave them three extra months
on the dole; but old Willie
didn't get that job telling folks to
Have it Your Way
for five bucks less an hour
than his glazed black skin
in the foundry had bought him.

Just seven years shy of retiring
Willie planned to move out,
maybe to Depew, where
he'd heard there were working
class folk like him.
The quiet life—out of the furnace,
safe—if silicosis didn't get him.

Maybe there were plenty
of Willies in PA
and, he sure knew how thick
the frost covered windows
in unheated homes.
But what about next winter
when their shared
lake froze over again?

Hell, they'd all go
South.

Survival

In the willow's umbrage, as sun rays pirouetted around a mallard
pair, the outline of his figure stood. Vaguely rounded at the belly-gravity had
patiently settled his form so-his back constrained him from the proud stance of
his vigor. He took his respite there against the tree.

The duck rose to retreat from his threat, commanding her mate, Come away. He has
killed others. The drake lifted himself and followed her, his bill opening and
closing in a silent aria, until both entered the obscure water where they'd
never seen the menace tread.

His Zippo clanked shut. With the definitive metal-on-metal snap, the
duo extend their wings and sweep low above the pond, then the earth, casting in
their path for invisible moments a hint of shade where no rest could be had.
With the last inhalation of heat and the coming clouds, he resumed the labor
only he could finish as they sailed into the safety of the reeds.

Claudia is in the MFA Program at Bennington College. She currently serves as Vice President of Just Poets in Rochester, New York where she lives the life of a full time poet. Her work has been published in The Hazmat Review and Poet's Canvas, as well as several regional anthologies. She has work upcoming in Words of Wisdom.