Chicago Tribune Newspaper Stand at the Oscar Mayer plant Madison, WI
Butler, Nickolas A.
Poem Chicago Tribune Newspaper Stand at the Oscar Mayer plant Madison, WI Just beyond the guard-shack Just outside the mill 3 newspaper stands, 3 cities, 3 headlines. I pass the news on my way...
...The day after-another 16 down, and again, and again...
...Tomorrow-another 16 down...
...I never knewbodies piling up in my mind, 16 at a time, Sifting down to earth holding hands, dropping M-16s...
...All 16 remembering spin the bottle in basements of shag-carpet Holding hands and closed-eye kisses...
...I pass the news on my way into the mill Aladdin thermos warm against my palm From Chicago: 16 Dead In Copter Crash...
...48 Americans down, like sparrows and plate-glass windows I see a pile in the sand...
...16 times three is 48...
...And after the weekend: 16 Dead In Copter Crash...
...All the helicopters falling to earth slow as injured angels...
...In Iraq, beneath the sand, my Sunday school teacher said, "The Garden of Eden is buried like treasure...
...In fourth grade our multiplication tables only ran to the 12s, 144, my mathematical ceiling...
...Time to watch the horizon come up to hold them hard...
...My abacus is fingers and toes and a forearm of ink...
...Nickolas A. Butler Nickolas A. Butler was a meatpacker at the Oscar Mayer plant in Madison, Wisconsin...
...16 Dead In Copter Crash...
...16, 32, 48, 64, 80, 96, 112 . . . An absentee paperboy neglecting his stand...
...He dedicates the poem to his friends in the fifth floor Slice-Pak and to his soldier buddy Luke Solomonson...
...The whip-whip-whip of slowing stilling blades...
Vol. 69 • January 2005 • No. 1
