By Roger Barbee

Mill Workers

                                    They emerge from the mist of cotton spun,

                                    pale cheeked, hungry eyed souls staring ahead.

                                    Spent men in mended bibs and misshaped shoes

                                    rushing from what was, not to what should be,

                                    followed by women in worn-thin dresses,

                                    too tired to rush for what waited at home.

                                    All carry the burden of too little

                                    and the responsibility of too much

                                    as they trudge from their lint-filled stations

                                    only to return in two-thirds of day

                                    to burden the owner’s load like his mule,

                                    each breath filled with fibers of work and death.