E PLURIBUS ALUMINUM

 

Thomas Michael McDade

 

 

When I left the Navy, jobs were easy.

Worked three-week stints for a year.

EPS Industries was the first

assembling doors and windows second shift.

The company motto was E Pluribus Aluminum.

Some guys on the payroll were from the project

where I grew up.

We remembered swearing never

to slave in a Goddamned factory.

One Friday we got drunk on Four Roses

near Dunnell's Pond after work,

sat on a wall WPA constructed,

discussed where we'd be working next.

Someone said Apex Rubber was hiring.

Piecework was their game.

Hell, they paid time-and-a-half for showering!

Man, it was like a chorus in a song

the way we all chimed at once:

fuck that filthy hole - E Pluribus Aluminum!

We roamed the project after that,

quizzing each other on who lived

in which blocks when we were kids.

We shouted those names like the lives behind them

were the stuff of mottos we planned to live by.