So fire runs in, runs out, runs somewhere else again, And the bar of steel is a gun, a wheel, a nail, a shovel, A rudder under the sea, a steering-gear in the sky; And always dark in the heart and through it, Smoke and the blood of a man. Pittsburg, Youngstown, Gary—they make their steel with men. In the blood of men and the ink of chimneys The smoke nights write their oaths: Smoke into steel and blood into steel; Homestead, Braddock, Birmingham, they make their steel with men. Smoke and blood is the mix of steel. The birdmen drone In the blue; it is steel a motor sings and zooms. · · · · · · Steel barb-wire around The Works. Steel guns in the holsters of the guards at the gates of The Works. Steel ore-boats bring the loads clawed from the earth by steel, lifted and lugged by arms of steel, sung on its way by the clanking clam-shells. The runners now, the handlers now, are steel; they dig and clutch and haul; they hoist their automatic knuckles from job to job; they are steel making steel. Fire and dust and air fight in the furnaces; the pour is timed, the billets wriggle; the clinkers are dumped: Liners on the sea, skyscrapers on the land; diving steel in the sea, climbing steel in the sky. BLUE ISLAND INTERSECTION Six street ends come together here. They feed people and wagons into the center. In and out all day horses with thoughts of nose-bags, Men with shovels, women with baskets and baby buggies. Six ends of streets and no sleep for them all day. The people and wagons come and go, out and in. Triangles of banks and drug stores watch. The policemen whistle, the trolley cars bump: Wheels, wheels, feet, feet, all day. In the false dawn when the chickens blink And the east shakes a lazy baby toe at to-morrow, And the east fixes a pink half-eye this way, In the time when only one milk wagon crosses These three streets, these six street ends, It is the sleep time and they rest. The triangle banks and drug stores rest. The policeman is gone, his star and gun sleep. The owl car blutters along in a sleep-walk. CLEAN CURTAINS New neighbors came to the corner house at Congress and Green streets. The look of their clean white curtains was the same as the rim of a nun’s bonnet. One way was an oyster pail factory, one way they made candy, one way paper boxes, strawboard cartons. The warehouse trucks shook the dust of the ways loose and the wheels whirled dust—there was dust of hoof and wagon wheel and rubber tire—dust of police and fire wagons—dust of the winds that circled at midnights and noon listening to no prayers.