A Winter Sacrifice

I tiptoe down this length of America,
a small pier, rusted dagger into the stagnant water.
Lake Michigan breathes beneath me
and the ice wheezes and cracks,
like slabs of drowning lung,
like my father in the mill,
like my father late at night.
Chicago crawls across the gray horizon,
and through the ice, I hear Michigan
gasp at this untended altar
to Industry, deity of old steel and death.
Through the ice, I see my father, no
I see an asbestos suit, steelworker’s hood
and obsidian face shield, the unfired kiln
that ate men and car skeletons, empty
maw of Industry’s hunger, but I know my father’s face
when I see it. After a lifetime of worship, he is sacrificed
to the rusted god, rail-tied wrists bound to the pier, beneath
the huffing ice. The lake heaves upwards again,
my father’s head cranes to me and I know
he sees me peering down at him.
He is still, almost dead, willing, a live
thing that melted dead things to make dead things,
given up now to the Once Almighty.
Exhale. He looks down. Inhale.
He looks up. Exhale. I leave
on the next breath, the dead father
coughs a hymn to its dead god.
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