Industrial decline
Colt's Armory, in Hartford, from an 1857 engraving viewed from the east. The Connecticut River Valley has long been a center of gun-making.
"The toolmaker
is sixty years old
unemployed
since the letter
from his boss
at the machine shop''
"The family watches
and listens to talk
of a bullet
in the forehead
maybe himself
maybe for the man
holding the second mortgage.
"sometimes
he stares down
into his wallet.''
From "The Toolmaker Unemployed: Connecticut River Valley,'' 1992, by Martin Espada.