S c o t  S i e g e l

Job Losses

Again, I dream my performance 
is less than satisfactory
and we must close the family business

Grandfather, a stowaway Jew 
on a Chinese Junk, crossed the Pacific
long before Prohibition

He built the print shop from naught, 
persevered through decades of war
Armed pressmen kept the looters at bay

through the gourd-pocked years 
of The Great Depression. They say business 
failure skips a generation—

On a good night, no Nazi rail cars  
trundle through my dreams

Scot Siegel's most recent book of poems is Thousands Flee California Wildflowers (Salmon Poetry, 2012). Siegel lives in Oregon where he works as a town-planning consultant and edits the online poetry journal Untitled Country Review.