I was amazed when one day a machinist came to work wearing
a T-shirt
with a big photo of Albert Einstein on it
with his wild hair and his twinkling 
stoned-on-the-universe eyes
as if Einstein were a rock star to rival Jim Morrison
but then
I thought why couldn’t a machinist
who worked with machine speed and feed equations
and memorized drill charts and carved perfect curved convex
10-inch radiuses across the face of shining steel blocks
be fascinated
by Einstein’s idea
of space bent gravity
why shouldn’t a machinist
who watches a beam of dawn sun shoot
over a mountain top through a machine shop tin door
onto the red long-necked oilcan sitting
on top of his engine lathe each morning want
to ride a sunbeam
like Einstein when he found that nothing was faster than light
didn’t Einstein like to sit in a boat in the middle of a lake
with a paper hat on his head
contemplating curved space
all day
the way a machinist in his hardhat sitting on a stool watching
a cutter turn
all day
contemplates the curve of a wave he will ride
Sunday
and didn’t Einstein love sex
and stick his tongue out at a camera in a world-famous photo

BLOB:
Fred Voss is an American poet and novelist who has written about the lives of American machinists working in factories for over forty years. This poem is from Someday There Will Be Machine Shops Full Of Roses, Smokestack books 
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