The Smoke Stack

Coughing up thick black smoke
The stuff he'd inhaled
Now returning in puffs
Graying the world around him
So accustomed to his ebony breath
He didn't understand why some were angered by his air
They'd stare at him
When he coughed up stuff that smudged the walls
As if he had planned to pollute the plaster.
People pushed away from him

When they'd see him on the street.
A lifetime of grime was embedded in his skin
Which he slavishly scrubbed each day
Though freedom wasn’t forthcoming
He remained neither black or white, but
The same unnatural hue
Of skin and coal dust
From a life lived below
Bent back broken with
Ripped knee bleeding
He’d spent his life this way
For a day's wages
To support all those who were his
All day long in the hell hole
Digging coal or forging steel
He’d slaved away.
Almost thirty years of it.
A lifetime spent laboring
Had labored his lungs
Licorice strings streamed out through his nose
During the winter
While soot seeped out of his skin during the summer.
He sometimes wondered

If one day he’d turn into a billowing cloud of smoke

So that he could socialize with the surrounding sky
He'd look at the fumes pouring from chimneys
Certain that was the destiny
Of all men who did the same work as he
Then he'd return to his work
Where he’d dream smoky dreams
Made of ashes, smog and soot.