Walking the Steel

Skywalkers,
the roughnecks
in a tough time,
straddled beams
skyscraping steel.

No high wire act
or Gay 90‘s applause
for scaffolding snakes
riveting girders in space,
just paydays

 with nowhere to go
but to flophouses
with windowless walls,
as towers and bridges
and arches rose. 

Cowboys of the clouds
in a Gilded Age
erecting steel, believing
only the sky
was the limit.

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Andrena Zawinski’s third and recently released full poetry collection is Landings. Her poems have received accolades for free verse, form, lyricism, spirituality, and social concern. She is Features Editor at PoetryMagazine.com and founded and runs the San Francisco Bay Area Women’s Poetry Salon.