Allied Maintenance, by Merrill Oliver Douglas

Merrill Oliver Douglas has published her work in Barrow Street, San Pedro River Review, Baltimore Review, Lips, IthacaLit, and South 85 Journal, among others. She lives in upstate New York, where she runs a freelance writing business, working with trade magazines, university magazines, nonprofit organizations, and corporate clients.

Poet on the poem:

When I first met my future husband, and for several years into our marriage, he worked on the machine maintenance crew at the huge IBM production complex in our area. IBM is no longer a significant employer in our part of New York State.