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Fred Voss

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Worth More Than Any Wage

If a machinist walking across a concrete machine shop floor feels like
                                                                                            throwing
his arm up into the air above his head
as he wiggles his ass like a football player
who’s just scored a touchdown
because he got laid last night
he does.
If he feels like wearing a foot-long feather
sticking up out of a crazy lime-green hat
or screaming out the Star Wars theme music
so loud the manager in his office
100 yards away can hear it
or growing his beard down to his navel
or reading Dostoevsky
as his machine runs or bringing
red boxing gloves into the shop to challenge another machinist to
                                                                                               fight
at lunch
or covering his legs with tattoos
of dominatrixes with leather whips
he does.
He dances
or punches sheet metal cabinets
or doesn’t change his shirt for 3 weeks
or climbs up onto a lunch table like it was a stage
and sings off-key
and doesn’t care what anyone thinks
as he does his best to make the most of one of the last places on earth
where men are free.

 

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