In the break room 

     the mill holds us

in its mouth: 

     the graveyard shift

and its floodlights: 

     Sally's buying a new trailer:

Tony's truck's about paid off: 

     a certain stillness

between us: 

     Jake's back in jail

for getting rowdy: 

     we are among the chosen:

someone's daughter 

     stays up all night

eating her own hair: 

     a woman on 3rd Street

applies makeup to a corpse 

     she's recently washed:

a cop drifts over a fog line 

     in his Crown Victoria:

the foreman's girlfriend 

     stands in the corner:

Todd thinks she looks 

     like a country singer:

the way her hair shines 

     like a bare bulb

over broken glass: 

     she's new here:

her painted fingernails: 

     she rests her hand

on the animal of sleep 

     and it leans

against her leg: 

     in fifteen minutes

she'll crawl up a ladder 

     into a metal cage

where hot sheets of plywood 

     will shoot out

one after another 

     like a satanic card trick,

and she'll guide them 

     by the edge, in midair,

and let them drop 

     to the sorter,

until she closes her eyes 

     just long enough

to catch the rhythm 

     of her own breath

and float upon the waters 

     where the animal of sleep

winds through the cattails: 

     she'll feel the calm

of starlight subtracted 

     from daylight:

then a sheet of veneer 

     will tear open her face:

the mill holds us 

     in its mouth:

a corpse's hands 

     are placed together:

the cop drives his cruiser 

     into the river:

which will soon fill 

     with a daylight

our curses may 

     or may not

ever reach.