When the workers cry May Day! May Day! They’re not dressed in native costume, dancing around a pole streaming colorful ribbons. They’re not lighting bonfires to leap over barefoot with their hair braided with wildflowers. They’re lighting bonfires to boil off the black damp to cook their bellies. May Day! They’re lighting bonfires to see past what’s coming. The workers are mobbing the desert with their families from the mines into town to get. The workers are mobbing the streets with their families from the pits, from the mills, assembly lines, up against the main gate to get May Day! May Day! The workers are building bonfires. Their children are stick fighting the bosses. The carbines are in place. The women’s mouths are forming a disbelief that will circle the world.

CRAIG CZURY lives in Scranton Pa where he conducts weekly online Life Writing From Cyberia workshops.