Muscles knotted

Under sweat-wet shirts

Capped and kerchiefed,

Knee-tied trousers

Shod boots, slipping, gripping,

Shifting bodies, bent to the task

Filling the half-ton steel bucket

Lift and load,

Lift and load

Lift and load

Shrunken red-eyed, dust-streaked faces

The hacking spit of black phlegm

Nodding quietly,

Proud as the level lowers

Taking them deeper within the hold

Swirling speck-filled clouds, lining lungs

And always the lowering bucket.

Dead men digging.