Seba Station
Oklahoma Route 66



*CHICKEN FACTORY

Boredom can be dangerous in youth, chasing madcap

dreams as easy as driving a hundred miles an hour on
a dirt road at midnight.  Turn the lights off to see if
anyone’s coming, then blow through the stop sign. 

Like the time my cousin and I dreamed of buying

motorcycles to ride to Florida for the rest of our lives. 
It would be easy after all and it was to get a job at the
chicken factory on a bank of the Arkansas River next
to the county jail.  Save a little money. 

They issued the tools of the trade, rubber impedimenta,

to clean the stink and guts off stainless steel surfaces on
the night shift.  It was summertime but cold, cold chemical
splatter sweats.  Shoveled out rolling bins of unfit chicken
parts bound for the dogfood factory. 

During the day we slept in my Grandmother’s iron bed,

sagging springs, no AC but a box fan in the window
pointed at our heads.  Wet hair blowing asleep. 

It only took three nights to get sick from the chemicals

in that industrial nightmare and the sharpening sense
of fear working alongside hardened men with face tattoos,
addicts, ex-prisoners and a jailbreak or two.  It only took
three nights to unrealize our dream. 

So my grandmother cut two straws.  My cousin picked the

long one which meant the Marine Corps.  That’s how I
joined the Navy, growing up very fast, learning how
to dream the right way.

*similar version published in Blue Collar Review
 

Downtown OKC
near Farmer's Market