There was an unsightly arm
And a cupped hand with three crusted fingers.
The hand sank into earth and bulged with it:
Then swung aloft in sudden exaltation . . . .
And the seamy, blotched man beside me said:
" I've stood here for two hours watching that steam-shovel —
Can't seem to get enough of it. "

I stood for hours, but I did not see the shovel.
I saw the man in smirched blue
Jerking a rope at the precise moment
When the laden hand dipped over a freight car —
His strained wet face and his eyes pressed to specks.
I saw the knotted-up man at the engine,
His face dead and dented like old tin.
(Life to him is the opening and closing of levers,
And heavy sleep.)

When I walked away the two men were fixed paintings
In the long art-gallery of my mind
Where portraits are weighed well before admission ...
The steam-shovel? — I had forgotten it.