you cease to smell the steel plant after you've lived here for a while

smoke is snow is ash are leaves that blow through the air aloft

and our houses dim their siding to the same soot grey style

and we hang our laundry out on sundays when they turn the furnaces off

and everybody's daddy works up on the line

the steinbrenners and the wilczewskis have been here the longest time

and everybody's mommy squints into the sun

sunday afternoon after all the laundry's done



sometimes a distant siren can set a dog to barking late at night

and then it dominos on down 'til every dog is joining in

and the first rumors of the lay-offs sing like a distant siren might

and we all perked up our ears and paced the fence of the ensuing din

and every night were glued to the tv news at six o'clock

'cuz it was hard to tell what was real and what was talk

and they explained about the cutbacks all with earnest frowns

but what they didn't say was that the plant was slowly shutting down



this town is not the kind of place that money people go

they make their jokes up on the tv about all the snow

and they're building condos down river from where the plant had been

but nobody really lives here now that the air is clean

and the president assured us that it was all gonna trickle down

like it'd be raining so much money that we'd be sad to see the sun

mr. wilczewski's brother had some business out in denver so they left town

everybody knows they were the lucky ones



you cease to smell the steel plant after you've lived here for a while