You turn your thoughts away from your own yard, <br />grandchildren skipping rope and tossing balls. <br />The bell rings and you’re running down the halls <br />of the old school past frog-faced Mrs. Sward <br />until you reach a desk, a wobbly one <br />with “Johnny loves Annette” engraved on it. <br />You look out of the window at the lit <br />blast furnaces, the molten morning sun <br />that was your immigrant pop’s bread and butter. <br />His heavy accent lingers in your mind, <br />his calloused fingers tousling teenage hair. <br />A while ago you left him in the stutter <br />of half goodbye. And now you look behind <br />inside a school that is no longer there.<br /><br />Leo Yankevich<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/rust-belt/
