He walked up Mill Street past the Foundry,
That citadel across from Nailers Row.
With eight kids and their mother as dependents,
He earned the pay that brought the bacon home.
An immigrant, he labored at the open-hearth
With Dagos, and Polacks, and Micks.
He had thirteen years at the Phoenix Works.
Eighteenth of February, nineteen twenty-six.
While Luigi tended the tap hole,
And Kowalski skimmed off the slag,
He proceeded to enter the gas flue.
To clean out the soot with a rag.
Nobody witnessed the mishap.
No one even knew who it was.
They recovered his belt and his work boots.
All the coroner said was, “Because.”
The paper’s front page told the story
Of a stranger who perished in hell.
They ran a correction, but misspelled his name,
Though his mourners were listed as well.
There is truth to this family legend,
But a mystery also implied;
He was burned beyond recognition.
Do we truly know who it was died?
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