bloomfield

by l. ward abel

On Christmas Eve
he'd come home
after eighteen hours' work
covered head to foot
in machine oil.
Old Broadway,
Macon,
yielded few jobs but these jobs
back in the Thirties:
the railroad
was among the last
to give up men to soup lines.
He left
such things as presents
and cheer
strewn,
because grind was all,
all was toil,
that was him.
The son, my father,
must have waited
patient
then distracted
for a returning,
distracted
for some unity
humor and pursuit,
but waited too long
with Grandmother,
another stranger
to holiday.

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