Poem of the Week, by James Wright

Autumn Begins in Martin's Ferry, Ohio

- James Wright



In the Shreve High football stadium,

I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville,

And gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at Benwood,

And the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling Steel,

Dreaming of heroes.   



All the proud fathers are ashamed to go home.

Their women cluck like starved pullets,

Dying for love.



Therefore,

Their sons grow suicidally beautiful

At the beginning of October,

And gallop terribly against each others' bodies.



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