Karen Weyant‘s Stealing Dust (published by Finishing Line Press) makes you feel too hot, too sticky, too tired, too old, too dirty. It sings the songs of the assembly line so irresistably you will sing along whether you have sung them before or not:

Forget eyeliner. It stains shadows beneath your eyes.

Forget mascara. It runs. Even the waterproof kind.

from “Beauty Tips from the Girls on 3rd Shift”.

The poems make obvious and close as skin worlds outside my own experience. From the title poem:

They don’t care about what we

take home with us: dirt that crawls

up our jeans, seeps through our socks,

leaving tiny dots like deer ticks

 

embedded deep in our skin

and dust that melts through our shirts,

our white tank tops, our bras, coloring

the tips of our nipples, black.

The poems open your eyes, then blind you. From “3rd Shift Sunrise”:

                The sun looks different

after 8 hours of dust & dirt,

                & fluorescent white lights.

…

                edges blurred

as if melted from furnaces

                that never stop running.

You can find more of Karen’s work on her website.