Pamela2

P a m e l a   K l e i n

What Doesn’t Kill You

Everyone here has tattoos

and can tell you tales

from when the plant had a kill floor.

Those were the days, they say.

Even Jack, stooped and squinting,

knee still twisted from that pig.

Man up, he says to the kids

who shiver in the smoke shack,

flicking ash to the floor.

It ain’t that cold. He laughs

into his paper cup of coffee—black,

burnt. Laughs and laughs.