PINK SLIME / BAD LIGHT

Not long out of high school, you find yourself here,
on the Raw Lunchables Stuff Line B. Where conveyor
belt brings raw meat straight out of the mixing vat,
tumbled with spices (proprietary)
to be stuffed into six-foot-long casing. Inevitably
there is excess. it’s here that you, armed
with high-powered hose and white plastic snow shovel,
spray the dredge from the catch tray. Sludge slaps
the tiled floor, then you scrape the piles,
with a particular kind of slosh each time you do.
Steam fills the process room and condensation drips
from the metal of the machines. You breathe
raw meat and chemical solution and feel a little further
from the burdens of child support. Byproduct,
gristle and slag, worm unceasingly into the catch tray.
Recycled light spills over the pneumatic pistons,
figures shadow the wall like a photo relief of ex-employees
and you make your mark before you’re out the door.
On the drive home, beneath 4 am light,
smoke billows in a mountain around the city.
You smoke a cigarette in the car, windows not even cracked.
It occurs to you then that it’s not about what you believe in
anymore, not like it was in school, no
now it’s always about what’s right in front of your face,
and still, even then, you don’t know if you believe in it.