Navy Yard Rush

The whole town shifted into high gear
at four thirty-five
when the whistle shrieked three times

to signal the end of the day
at the Navy Yard.
Workers who repaired and refitted

warships, some of them
the largest afloat,
thronged through the gates,

their talk and laughter rolling
ahead of them down the streets.
Their faces darkened with fatigue

and glistening with sweat,
they piled into buses,
lunch pails clinking and jangling;

those in cars revved their engines
and honked at the line ahead
as soon as the light changed.

The Seaside Tavern earned
its money between five and eight,
and on Friday, the line

at the Marine National Bank
stretched out the door.
Everyone not in the Rush

tried to avoid it,
even though it reminded us
who we were.

The town did not exist
without the Yard,
and in that daily migration

homeward,
we flowed together
like the incoming tide.

*

The poetry of David Lee Garrison, an emeritus Wright State University Professor, has been published widely, read by Garrison Keillor on The Writer’s Almanac, and featured by Ted Kooser in American Life in Poetry. He won the Paul Laurence Dunbar Prize for Poetry in 2009 and was named Ohio Poet of the Year in 2014. His chapbook, Tailfins, will come out in November of 2026 from Finishing Line Press.