Jim Burns
The Line-up
(one of my father's stories)
I’d hurry there first thing in the morning
and stand in line with the rest,
and the foreman would come along
with a pile of metal discs in his hand,
and walk down the line and look at us,
and he’d hand out a disc here and there
to a few familiar faces, or maybe on a whim,
and to anyone he knew would buy him drinks,
so that left thirty or forty of us
waiting to know if we would work that day,
and the foreman would pause and frown
and pretend he’d enough men for the job,
then throw the discs on the floor
and walk away smiling as men scrambled
and pushed and shoved for a chance
to take a little money home that night.
and stand in line with the rest,
and the foreman would come along
with a pile of metal discs in his hand,
and walk down the line and look at us,
and he’d hand out a disc here and there
to a few familiar faces, or maybe on a whim,
and to anyone he knew would buy him drinks,
so that left thirty or forty of us
waiting to know if we would work that day,
and the foreman would pause and frown
and pretend he’d enough men for the job,
then throw the discs on the floor
and walk away smiling as men scrambled
and pushed and shoved for a chance
to take a little money home that night.
Page(s) 34
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