At the Lathe
Leave a commentJune 30, 2023 by The Citron Review
by Ivan Hobson
When the steel bar is turning
and the carbide insert is cutting
what I have asked it to cut,
the metal shavings can spin off
fine as piano wire.
Will you play for me tonight?
Something gentle as a butterfly,
your eyes on our wedding?
Help me forget these machines,
all painted gray with their different
ways of friction, and voices
like factory workers
at a bar near closing time.
Play for me tonight my love,
remind me I am delicate,
something silk underneath it all.
Ivan Hobson is an MFA graduate from San Francisco State University. Along with teaching English at Diablo Valley College, he works as a shipyard machinist on Mare Island. His poems have been published in, among other places, the North American Review, Oxford Poetry, The Malahat Review, and The Poetry Foundation’s American Life in Poetry series.
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