THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

In the Shreve High football stadium,

I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Titonsville,

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 other’s bodies.

James Wright, “Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio”, in Wright/Complete