Swooping through Broken Windows

← v17n1, Spring 2018

A few frayed threads, but hardly the worse for wear,

last century’s jacket is slicked with the salt air.

Where it was made they don’t make things anymore.

No worker’s pay cut or the manager’s plea

could budge the addition in the spreadsheet.

Water took the lease, signed the walls with spores.

Now every spring the swallow chicks open wide

for the squirming their parents bring. What kind

of work did the hands that turned the lining find?

Did her children finish school? Start it? The wind

and rain slap at the jacket. I’m dry inside.

work class memory

Michelle Boisseau

Michelle Boisseau (1955–2017) was the author of six collections of poetry including Among the Gorgons (University of Tampa Press, 2016). She received a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 2017 and her second National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 2010. Her textbook, Writing Poems (Longman, 2004), is in its eighth edition. She was a professor of English at the University of Missouri–Kansas City until her death from lung cancer last fall. We will miss her distinct voice.