Better Days Ahead

Better Days Ahead

Smoke weighs heavy
In the Natchez dusk
Blown like an old man’s last breath
From the box factory stack
The sooty cough of workers
Sounds like cigarette lung blues
When the bluebird sings for love
On the slopes of the Mississippi River bluff
With dusk deepening
Into ochre shades of sorrow
Until the whistle blows its old refrain
For shadowy tribes of tribulation
To go home to meat and potatoes
And wives who grasp at splinters of faith
For better days ahead