Petroleum Coke Piles On The Detroit River Poem by Salvatore Ala

I went to Ambassador Park,
What an eyesore that petroleum coke.
If Zug Island wasn’t displeasing
With its Windsor boom and toxic look,
Now they let petroleum peddlers
Dump their junk on the downtown river.
This is what they think of people.
This is what they think of the earth.
When did that neighborhood
Become an industrial site? First the riots
Then recession and the crash.
Didn’t anyone pick anyone else up?
If Detroit is hell on wheels
With incinerator and coke piles
It’s hell in sky and water.
Tankers load up with thermo-crack,
A cloud in the river spreads
Like an oil slick big as the cloud.
West of us sundown is ablaze,
That’s the sunset of a non-earth.