Celeste Doaks, Domino Sugar Factory

Celia Cruz was a salsa singer from Cuba, land of sugar, whose hit “Azúcar Negra” [Black Sugar] evokes the intersections of race and the sweetener industry. The Domino Sugar Factory in Baltimore is the last manufacturing plant still operating in the Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. It has been in operation for 90 years, and its sign is 61 years old.

This ninety-year-old relic still stands

on the inner harbor’s edge like a beauty

mark that refuses to fade into the epidermis.

Gone are the lathe maker, brazer,

plant manager, and all the old men

like my father who once felt purposeful

in America. Inside, dark grime collects

alongside this cloying smell, but the factory

cares not. It has grown a thick skin over

all these years to the tourists’ turned-up noses

as they swig down martinis inside hotel lobbies

adorned with enormous plastic plants. How refined!

The building’s a curmudgeon chugging along,

churning out packets of sweetener. As the sugar

transitions from maple to ivory, no trace

of Cuba exists. The sign forever burning red;

and we can almost hear Celia singing

Azúcar Negra somewhere beyond the grave.