Silk (A Pantoum): Factory Poems 1

Synthetic silk sewing, stitching, scribbling garment makers –

Smoke was pumped into the sky – as usual.

Fair factories formulating, fabulating, fabricating model workers –

Tens of thousands a day – nothing beautiful.

As usual, smoke was pumped into the sky –

Jet-black soot – pigmenting the laborers' uniforms whole–

Tens of thousands a day – nothing beautiful.

Cinder conquering all bodily airways, filled with a reminder of reality.

Jet-black soot was pigmenting the laborers' uniforms whole –

Smog eddying into clouds – hair blowing behind them – like cigarette smoke.

Cinder conquering all bodily airways, filled them with a reminder of reality.

Rutted fissures etched into their faces – hands outstretched in surrender. 

Smog eddying into clouds – hair blown behind them – like cigarette smoke –

Heads vanished in the smog – minds perished of fumes and fog.

And faces – covered with rutted fissures – hands outstretched in surrender:

If there is hope – they say – it lies in these proles.

Synthetic silk was sewing, stitching, scribbling the garment makers.

​Written at Yingjia Factory, Longhua district, Shenzhen