of the buildings
leading the way there.
My feet skip across the sidewalk
all the way home
like a mallard glancing off the water
as he lifts,
gusting upward
into the sky.
Perhaps I will not have to work first
to earn my way
into school.
Once Mama finds a job
I could carve out time for classes
by waking up early
starting my chores
while the rest are still asleep.
I drag the washbasin
into the bedroom
so when Mama comes home
she can have a moment
to herself
to wash away the chill
the grime
of a day on the city streets.
I fill the kettle
add a scoop of coals to the fire
fan the flames
until the water begins to murmur
then bubble
then burst.
sunlight
There is a small space
wide as a horse-drawn cart
between the building where we live
and the one behind it.
Just before noon,
before the sun has reached its highest point,
that space
fills with light
and warmth.
The tenement empties
like sand spilling out of a broken jar.
The alley swarms with children
women bring their piecework
and sit, their faces tilted up
to catch the sun
as it filters through the
silted city air.
In under an hour, it is gone again
slipped past the edge of the next building
like an egg yolk
sliding out of the shell.
impossible
Mama comes home
at noon on Friday
to begin Shabbos preparations
with nothing to show
for five long days of looking.
There are so many immigrants
desperate for work;
a grocer who left her store behind
is of little interest
to anyone.
We need to buy food
and oil; pay rent
pay for seats at shul for the holy days.
(at least for Papa and my brothers)
So Papa decides that on Monday
I will look for work
instead.
On this holy day
which should be restful
thoughtful
inspiring
the gloom
inside our apartment
seeps through my skin
weighing down
my limbs
pressing like an iron
filled with red-hot coals
against my chest.
School may be free
but how can I go
if I am to work all day long?
So much is different here
from our shtetl—
language
people
work
chaos
progress.
But really,
nothing has changed.
We travel halfway around the world
and still
my dreams are impossible.
flame
1905–1907
sweatshop
After a morning meal
of hard bread
two eggs shared
between the five of us
Papa takes Marcus to shul
to pray
for Nathan.
I go looking for work.
I start at the school.
I can speak, read, write
two languages.
Surely someone
will pay for a tutor.
The director turns me away,
but kindly.
English is the only tongue of interest here.
Next I try the grocery stores.
They do not even tell me why
I am shooed away quickly
and not so kindly.
The day dawned bright
and clear;
now heavy clouds have moved in,
a drizzle
darkens the cobbles
beneath my feet.
I stop in a café
spend a penny
on a glass of milk
for lunch,
sip slowly
so my stomach thinks
it is enough.
Each day
the soup is thinner
our portions of bread smaller
Benjamin’s rumbling stomach
louder.
Mama does not say it
but I think
we are near the end
of our coins.
In the shtetl
at least we had
a kitchen garden
community donations
to feed the hungry.
But here,
a garden is impossible
and no one has extra pennies
to give.
The waiter, at least
has a helpful tip
he says,
There are always jobs
at the garment shops
for girls like you.
I wonder
what that means
(a girl like me)
but I follow his pointing arm
to the shops
up the street.
It is there I learn
my first English word:
sweatshop
there is no Yiddish
or Russian translation
for the rows
and rows
of women
and girls
some of them younger than me
breathing air clogged with smoke
from the coal-burning stove,
shoulders hunched
sleep-starved eyes squinting
at the fabric before them
ears ringing
with the
BANG BANG BANG
of the machines.
All those grim faces—
is that what the waiter saw in me?
I have to shout
to make myself heard
as I visit shop after shop after shop
asking for work.
I have to say
if I am looking for work
in a place like this
it must be true—
I am one of those
desperate
grim-faced girls.
celebration
I am not the only girl looking for work.
I visit three shops
before one in a cellar
below a clothing store
ten blocks from where we live
has an opening for an apprentice
to a sub-subcontractor.
The workers
teenage girls like me
middle-aged women
a handful of men
cut, iron, stitch together
pattern pieces
of starched white cotton
into tapered blouses
called shirtwaists.
Starting tomorrow
I will work seven days a week
ten hours or more
each day.
I will earn six dollars
to bring home at the end of each week.
(though I have to buy
my own needle
and thread)
Now that I have found work
I can begin English classes
at the free school in the evenings.
I buy a fat
salted pickle to celebrate
take tiny, ant-sized bites
so it lasts all the way home.
obedient
I should be happy
to bring home money
for my family
but I know now why
I found a job
so much faster than Mama.
The shops prefer to hire girls
who will work longer days
for less pay.
Have we not been told
all our lives
that a good girl
is obedient
biddable
meek?
All these good girls
marching to work before the sun rises
marching home again after it has set
balancing bundles of piecework
on their heads.
An army of girls
trained in silence.
I have never been
obedient
or
biddable
or
meek.
In this world
where I am made to be
something I am not,
small,
secret things
wither
inside of me.
lock
Slam
twist, click.
Locked inside
a brick box
bile rises
lungs pump
workers shuffle
to their stations.
Stools creak
heads bow
needles stabbing
bobbins banging
thread marching in
straight
steady
seams.
Breath settles
panic swallowed
footsteps click
stool creaks
my own head
bows down.
search
At the end of the day
the foreman unlocks the door.
The workers form a line,
their eyes fixed on the shard of sky
just visible
between two buildings
almost touching,
their faces
empty
lips drawn
tight over gritted teeth.
One by one
the foreman
pats the workers down
roving over curves and creases
searching for scraps of fabric or thread or dignity
that might find their way out
of the shop.
when it is my turn I cannot make
myself take that last step forward
so he comes at me and again I am
only trying not to flinch not to cry
out not to quiver not to fling those
hands off curves and creases that
have only ever known my own two
hands
sleepless
night winds
wind through the streets
below
moaning
wailing
drawing down courses
of tears
out of a starless sky
forbidden
My second English word
is written on placards
all over the shop.
It means
a rap on the knuckles
if I talk
a clap on the back of the head
if I laugh
a smack on the shoulder
if I so much
as hum.
It seems everything
is forbidden
in this shop.
When I walk home through gaslit streets
after work
after two classes at the free school
Papa’s anger is steaming
bubbling
like a kettle
left to boil over on the stove.
He says,
You were supposed to be home
by seven o’clock.
I say,
I had English classes
after work.
I forbid you
to attend classes at night,
he says.
English is not Russian, Papa.
This is not the language of persecution
it is the language of our freedom.
He shakes his head.
You will come home
after work
to help your mother
with the cleaning.
All my life
I have been told
a daughter can do no worse
than talk back to her father
but I am so tired
from the terribly dull
terribly long day.
I smell
like that sweaty
stale room that trapped me inside
all day
and I cannot bear
that word
one more time.
I worked ten hours
for this family.
I have earned an hour
or two
for myself.
I know better
but still
I say,
You help her.
I brace myself
set my jaw against
the blow
I know
is coming
but still
my head whips back,
the sound of his hand
smacking my cheek
seems to come from somewhere
hollow
inside my head.
I know
he thinks
to break this thing in me
that insists
I think
for myself
but like a fledgling
thrust from the nest
it only makes me test the strength
of my own wings.
Sundays
Mama walks under bare branches
just beginning to sprout
young buds
to the pier
to call Nathan’s name
across the water.
The ferry docks,
drops its latest crop
of immigrants
on these shores.
Mama begs a crewman
to deliver a letter
to Ellis Island.
He takes the paper
she presses into his hands
whether or not he understands
her pleas.
Mama believes he does as she asks
but I wonder
if her letters are not simply tossed
into the waves,
lost
in a sea of tears.
truce
There is still no news of Nathan
so Papa and I have settled
on an uneasy truce.
The immigration documents
are in English
the quarant
ine officials
speak English.
Mama keeps the house
Papa takes my brothers to shul
to pray,
I work
I learn English.
We all do our part
to bring Nathan home.
mornings
I have become adept
at getting dressed
in the dark
feeling for the bend in my stockings
heel
then knee.
Buttoning,
lacing, cinching.
Twisting my frizzy hair up
into a coil
that will not unravel
no matter how late I work.
With my first few paychecks
and the pennies
from her piecework
Mama paid the rent
purchased food
covered a single wall in the parlor
with a creamy yellow paper
—just the color of the sun rising
through the window
of her store in the shtetl—
with scrolls and blossoming vines
climbing toward the ceiling.
A boiled egg
a thick slice of unbuttered bread
out the door
stepping around the rats
that scrabble in the hallways,
down the stair.
My feet find the sidewalk
where the air is alive
with the sharp smell
of warm rain
on dusty cobbles,
where I cannot see
more than an arm’s length in front of me
but I can hear
the brisk swishing of skirts
as thousands of girls
walk with me.
In the shtetl,
we woke with the cock’s crow
with the sun rising,
turning the tips of the meadow grasses
into pure gold.
If I am honest,
I admit
that on some lonely,
sleep-hazed mornings
when I cannot see a thing
but the hulking shadows
black on black
of building
after crumbling building,
I long for that simple,
quiet place.
English class
I wash the dishes,
the teacher says.
I wash the dishes,
we repeat.
A dozen eggs, please,
the teacher says.
A dozen eggs, please,
we repeat.
Do you want starch in the collar?
the teacher says.
Do you want starch in the collar?
we repeat.
The classroom at the free school
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