Dairy Rhythms 2, the Milkhouse
The milkhouses tunes play all at once,
Weaving in and out: machine time
quick, quick, quick sorta-fast, sorta-fast
and slo–o–o–o–owly. The andante
paddles of a pasteurizing vat
Travels to the ceiling and ripples
poco-a-poco down the ramp of cooling
coils cantabile into the bottling tank
the bottles rise, fill, lower in a stately minuet
until they meet the capper and click-up
stamp down-spi-i-n, whirling allegro
Big cans swung from the wash vat reverberate
and ring with cymbal clanging. The bottles
their cases shiver and chatter as they are
slung from returning trucks. The behemoth
can washer gives them a lento trip through
a caustic scald. In its roiling stomach; the
cooler rinses in its growling gut; the action
on either end is presto. The maw’s concave
teeth snatch dirty bottles, gulps them up in
as more teeth grab, while at the other end
gleaming bottles disgorge row by row onto
a moving belt that takes them to a bottler
fugue-fast. The innards on the homogenizer
pound a rhythmic fortissimo, the butter
churn rambles forte, the cream Separator
centrifugal races, hums piano.
2024 Jacqueline Jackson
This article appears in Asking the public for help.
