Six O'Clock

Katherine Newton

I promised him that I would wait
Here in the car, then he can go
Straight home from his mill and not be late
For dinner. How shrill those whistles blow!
Where factory smoke has laid a long black bruise
Across the tender apricot sky
Soft hands of night will blur it out.
Grey children, leaving work you did not choose
And walking without play or shout,
You scar my heart until I die.
Those weary houses leaning up the hill
Insult me with monotony.
The only flower in each yard I see
(One blossom neither heat nor cold can kill)
Is a round black washpot whose three legs spread
Over ashes and toil, both greyly dead.

Where spinners open a door I must inhale
Air that is lint-encrusted, spring-denied;
Tonight my first-picked strawberries will taste stale
And bitter like that sweat, unwiped, which dried
In droll white patches on those grimy faces.

Hereafter I shall wait in other places!