Pocahontas’ body, lovely as a poplar, sweet as a red haw in November or a pawpaw in May, did she wonder? does she remember? ... in the dust, in the cool tombs? Take any streetful of people buying clothes and groceries, cheering a hero or throwing confetti and blowing tin horns ... tell me if the lovers are losers ... tell me if any get more than the lovers ... in the dust ... in the cool tombs. FOG The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on. FROM “SMOKE AND STEEL” Smoke of the fields in spring is one, Smoke of the leaves in autumn another. Smoke of a steel-mill roof or a battleship funnel, They all go up in a line with a smokestack, Or they twist ... in the slow twist ... of the wind. If the north wind comes they run to the south. If the west wind comes they run to the east. By this sign all smokes know each other. Smoke of the fields in spring and leaves in autumn, Smoke of the finished steel, chilled and blue, By the oath of work they swear: “I know you.” Hunted and hissed from the center Deep down long ago when God made us over, Deep down are the cinders we came from— You and I and our heads of smoke. · · · · · · Some of the smokes God dropped on the job Cross on the sky and count our years And sing in the secrets of our numbers; Sing their dawns and sing their evenings, Sing an old log-fire song: You may put the damper up, You may put the damper down, The smoke goes up the chimney just the same. Smoke of a city sunset skyline, Smoke of a country dusk horizon— They cross on the sky and count our years. · · · · · · Smoke of a brick-red dust Winds on a spiral Out of the stacks For a hidden and glimpsing moon. This, said the bar-iron shed to the blooming mill, This is the slang of coal and steel. The day-gang hands it to the night-gang, The night-gang hands it back. Stammer at the slang of this— Let us understand half of it. In the rolling mills and sheet mills, In the harr and boom of the blast fires, The smoke changes its shadow And men change their shadow; A nigger, a wop, a bohunk changes. A bar of steel—it is only Smoke at the heart of it, smoke and the blood of a man. A runner of fire ran in it, ran out, ran somewhere else, And left smoke and the blood of a man And the finished steel, chilled and blue.