This Isn’t to Say – Mark Parsons

January 3, 2026

This isn’t to say I’m not embarrassed, because I am.
But if you were watching upstairs in your office, on closed-circuit TV,
As one of your hardest workers had a violent freakout
On the factory floor, and you felt in some way entertained, gratified, even,
The answer is no, you shouldn’t reprimand me.
It’s the same with women and sex: if she gets herself off
To the memory later, it wasn’t assault,
Much less rape.
That disembodied Everywoman smirk,
The voice that taunts like musical
Water torture from out of the ether, because
She knows she’ll win in the end.
I know you owner-gods of this here business
Must be satisfied, must see, if nothing else, passion
From your workers, no matter how
Inappropriate, mis-directed, or destructive, and come
Hell and high water I showed it to you—of that there can be no doubt.
The LCD thermometers tapped out at a hundred and ten
Every day by noon for six weeks, without ventilation the viscous air
As heavy as pudding, while we paced the floor of the factory
Dead-eyed, exhausted, and restless, disconsolate chickens looking
In vain for something to peck, sometimes pecking at
Nothing at all. Clutched and clawed
By the cloying heat as abrasive as emery powder,
Swallowed up by the mantle of the earth and lost in the boiling
Mineral-cauldron like a cube of sourdough bread
In cheese fondue, the lonely chicken-waltz became a frenzied cock-fight
With my own shadow.