what does a rubber worker exhale
if it’s the same as what she inhales
if she complains to management
that the label on the primer
is a warning with a skull and crossbones
and there’s no ventilation in the building
to ingest the souls of the antioxidants
the activators and bonding agents
if she asks her boss for a little fan
to suck in some soul, a little window
to open, to let out the fillers, solvents
and retarders she smells all the way
to the parking lot, the little bit of soul
that gets in the car and drives home
with her, that’s in her bloodstream and hair
that sleeps on her pillow
when she closes her eyes but can’t sleep
when she opens her mouth to breathe
Paola Corso is a New York Foundation for the Arts poetry fellow and author of a book of poems Death by Renaissance set in her native Pittsburgh river town where her Italian immigrant grandfather and father worked in the steel mill. Her story collection Giovanna’s 86 Circles, also set in Pittsburgh, is forthcoming from the University of Wisconsin Press. Email her at paola_corso@hotmail.com.