I Nearly Became A Forklift Truck Driver

“What do you know about our company?”

I know the groan the factory makes
when it warms up, but not what makes it.
I’ve known its percussion for fifteen years,
but never seen inside it.

I know that it makes things it doesn’t need:
when I was 7 we found thousands of metal discs
in the swamp behind it, the silt turned to mirror
and I believed everything and kept a shoe box full.

I know that you keep the beat of the town
on your wrist, that the men all wear blue,
leave like an estuary on a Friday
and that I welcome some of them.

I know that you have a cordoned off area -
6ft fences, barbed wire and that my brothers
left me in there once when the man came
and I learnt shame and consequence.

“Not very much.” I said, then “Sorry.”