a walk through the looming

Lincoln stepped down central street
before he was President

the Mills were pulsating
leather veins twisting cotton
into fabric

he might have nodded
as he watched the looms
and thread

The printed dresses filthy as
young girls with dark circles
smeared under their eyes
vacantly totured the equipment

The 7-fingered boys
who knew how bad one mistake
could be, even in a short life

The cracked voices of forement
searching for dye, and help,
unimpressed with an Illinois Senator

The silence now is respectful,
perhaps because he is gone
but maybe not.