Everyday on time comes creaking On the line a girder truck. Where hill shoulders up To warehouse she looks And thinks of men waiting. They watch for the train Slugging its weight; they watch For a woman to volley their stares Until, like welded joints, they freeze Before the foremen call them back. No Medusa so benign Braved a Perseus so afraid; But in the pub, she thinks, they'll say That I am stab-tooth, serpent-kind.