{"id":5852,"date":"2025-12-01T23:02:52","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T03:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/?page_id=5852"},"modified":"2025-12-01T23:02:52","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T03:02:52","slug":"packard","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/fall-2025-digital-lit\/packard\/","title":{"rendered":"Packard \u2014 Selen Frantz \u2014 Fall 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Untitled

Untitled by Richard Hanus<\/p><\/div>\n

Packard<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Selen Frantz<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I.
\nDimes an hour, times sixty.
\nStomachs full and chassis made\u2013<\/p>\n

if you squint, this
\nis almost living.<\/p>\n

II.
\nWind whistles through concrete ribs as the final men trickle out, carrying their steel and enamel.
\nThey fidget with authorization cards in hands blackened by solder, letting them fall from empty
\npockets and into piles where the Us and As and Ws chatter back and forth as they remember the
\nrumble of the foundry.<\/p>\n

III.
\nWe stumble over the barrier and into a world only remembered by forbidden feet and the nozzle
\nof a spray can. Our words fill the air around us, bouncing off the flat walls and down the
\nmile-long track rooms, past the shuttered offices, the piles of electronics and stolen vans, the
\nbroken glass, the puffer jackets, the bubble letters and profanity, the unintentional skylights, and
\nthe place we always take pictures.<\/p>\n

I remind you that my great-grandfather worked here before the draft, before getting gassed out
\non the western front, before returning to the foreman like a wounded dog, before coughing his
\nlungs out in a bar at age fifty, only two blocks from where he was born and had lived in a
\nurethane haze.<\/p>\n

We kick a piece of concrete down the stairs and hear it disappear into the deep stone artery.<\/p>\n

IV.<\/p>\n

From the grass and reclaimed nature on Palmer and Concord,
\nwe clasp our jackets tighter and see the cranes sway and dance,
\ndipping the rusted beams and their long tresses to the floor.
\nMen in sun-yellow shout
\nthough these words have lost their echo
\nand to the drum of a countdown
\nthey scatter like rats lost
\nin the troughs of the assembly line.
\nIn one deafening motion, the world opens
\nits shaking mouth to overcast skies.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Selen Frantz<\/b> is an urban planner from Detroit and is currently the William T. Battrick Poetry Fellow at Oberlin College. Her work has appeared in <\/span>Lucky Jefferson<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>BarBar<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Meniscus<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Prime Number Magazine<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>ellipsis<\/span><\/i>, and elsewhere.<\/span><\/p>\n

Richard Hanus<\/b> had four kids, but now just three. Zen and Love.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Back to issue<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Packard Selen Frantz   I. Dimes an hour, times sixty. Stomachs full and chassis made\u2013 if you squint, this is almost living. II. Wind whistles through concrete ribs as the Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7316,"featured_media":0,"parent":5625,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5852"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5852"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5852\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6047,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5852\/revisions\/6047"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}