Robert Beveridge

Industrial Revolution

Old socks are cast aside: the violent light
of tongues, of tails accentuates your tits
as if a sheen of Armor-All could knight

a dash, not just restore a modicum of sight,
imitation leather’s “imitation” bit.
Old socks can burnish pride, machismo, might

even make new flesh feel just that perfect right
that gives a fresh garage a perfect fit,
as though your car a steed and you a knight

who rides off to find dragons left to fight
in a world of autos, wrecking yards, and shit
like old socks, cast aside against a light

whose era came and fled as if in fright
the day it saw its first steam-shovel pit.
No armor can protect time, that old knight,

from its inevitable march to night.
We stand, we walk, we fall, we deal with it.
Old socks are cast aside: the violent light
cannot protect our bodies from that blight.

Robert Beveridge (he/him) makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry in Akron, OH. His poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Foxglove Journal, Welter, and Take 5ive.