Autumn begins.
Autumn Begins In Martins Ferry， Ohio
James Wright
In the Shreve High football stadium
I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville
And gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at Benwood
And the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling Steel
Dreaming of heroes.
All the proud fathers are ashamed to go home.
Their women cluck like starved pullets
Dying for love.
Therefore
Their sons grow suicidally beautiful
At the beginning of October
And gallop terribly against each other's bodies.
