Linen-heavy leaves
wilt beneath the insistent
star of noon

as inside      ones & twos
cluster shaded in smoke
from archaic cigarettes

burning holes in dark
loading dock doors     embers
glowing       syncopated togetherness

the workers watch
an immobile sun
turn soil to ash

their trucks
uniformly clay-colored
under the bleached

words painted high on the far
brick wall a half-block distant
          King Arthur Flour Mill

long since
closed     sinking
to ground