April 8th: Extended Metaphor

The Dead Weather

Industry–cotton–blooms,

briars scratch the children.

Patches of smeared red flowers

stain the back of dusty hands.

A buttoned boy with brass handles

rides past the mill, lifts a lip 

at the girl without shoes.

The snow in her greasy hair.

The ring is held behind her back.

The scum with nine fingers holds

her shoulders. He will marry her

in two weeks, under the tracks

and shrieking steel. The river gurgles.

From the bridge the girl’s feet

He would braid her hair only to unbraid it.
The train moaned above the cracked 

sky, above the trees. The mill girl walked,

and he grabbed his brass handles.

Pearled earrings and red lips 

drain hot tea and a man

with buttons turns his back to 

tinkling laughter–outside 

the window his property of

white globes is catching the dust.

Copyright 2010, Hannah Toke.

This poem is an extended metaphor of social differences and boundaries in the early 1900's, when status and class was everything to society, and love was not for those who didn't want to go with the flow of wealth or poverty.