Scrap

Squint-dizzy in the hallways of summer,
I lean into the unquenchable hands

of the sun as it heaps the rollicking
industry of daytime over me: heat

and the nova-flash of glass and metal,
motorcycle Doppler songs, the far-off

shirt-rip of mower engines, radios
generously pushing their waves toward

the shore of me. This unroofed factory
floor, this place of sweat, where all things are made

by the unmaking of something else. See
me there among the workpieces? I’m simply

scrap cast from the spinning lathe of warm light,
waiting to find form in these dusty hours.

*

Dane Hamann works as an editor for a textbook publisher in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. He received his M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Northwestern University, after which he served as the poetry editor of TriQuarterly for over five years. His chapbook Q&A was published by Sutra Press and his micro-chapbooks have been included in the Ghost City Press Summer Series.