Night Fires

Jessica Nelson North

We came into Pittsburgh at night
Over trestles of steel,
And our path was red with the light
Of fires that we could not feel.

Out of the granite and ice
Of the Alleghenies we came.
The whistle sounded twice
And the sky reeled with flame.

Oven doors swung back
Vomiting smoke and ashes.
Men, sweating and black,
Bowed to the unseen lashes.

These are the steel-makers,
Giants bound and bitter.
They swarm in their seething acres
Like night's own litter.
They beat their shining spoil
From the earth's cold languor,
They live in flame, they toil
Molten with anger.