is just as littered
just as dusty
just as tempting
to an open flame.
influence
While the foreman
steps out for a cigarette
I talk to the girls
at the table
with me.
I say,
Think of all we stand to gain
if we speak with one voice.
Have you joined the union yet?
Of course,
the Italian women understand nothing
of what I say
but I think of Isabella,
how we did not need words
to understand each other.
I hope when the time comes
it is the same
with these women;
words inconsequential
as feathers
dropped
in midflight.
snow
The orders slowed
and so
for the first time all winter
I have a Sunday off.
Pauline and I wrap up
in our warmest clothes
until only our eyes
and the pink tips of our cheeks
touch the air.
We stop in a café
for a cup of mulled cider,
ride the Fifth Avenue bus
to Central Park
where the snow swells
on top of bushes
and bedrock
and petite trees
like a garden of clouds
round and white
sparkling with the laughter
of the sun.
alight
I passed my Spelling
and Mathematics exams!
I hurry after work
to the free school
to check the schedule
for the next round:
Geography
History
and Trigonometry.
The thing that separates
rich from poor
in this world
is knowledge.
A person can rise up
if she can read
if she can think
if she can speak.
I cannot attend
every class
every lecture
but if I share what I learn
with the girls in my shop
in between bites
during lunch
if Pauline shares
with the girls in her shop
in between bites
during lunch
it is as if we all
were there together.
I see
these lunchtime lessons
spreading like fire
skipping from one box of tinder
to the next
across the shops
through the slums
until the entire city is alight
with small
fierce-burning flames.
time
I wish I had a clock of my own
—I do not need burnished silver
or gilded chains—
tin would do
or brass
as long as the gears turn
as long as the hands
read true.
At lunch,
when we should have half an hour,
the foreman moves the hands
of the shop clock forward
to cut our time short.
(we have caught him at it
once or twice, but
he is only cleaning the gears,
so he says)
Before the end of the workday
he moves the hands back again
farther this time
to keep us at our workstations
even longer.
Only after the doors are unlocked
and we lift our eyes to the clock in the square
do we know for sure
we have been let out late
again.
How can we ever
prove him wrong
if we are all too poor
for a simple timepiece?
I feel like a monkey on a chain
dancing for the laughing crowds
with no way to break free.
the shrike
Today I watched a shrike
plummet through the air.
Its curved beak
clamped
onto a swallow’s neck
in midflight.
The shrike’s wings snapped open
he glided to perch
on the thorned tree
outside the shop.
He must not have been hungry
just then—
he thrust the swallow’s body
onto a thorn,
impaling it,
saving it for later.
What student of science am I
disrupting the natural order of things
that I wanted to swat the creature away,
lift down the lifeless bird
bury her
unhindered
under a layer
of freshly turned dirt?
speedups
Without a machine
a worker can make thirty stitches
a minute.
With a machine
that number rises
to over three thousand.
But somehow
the boss is not satisfied, still
with such a pace
fasterfasterfaster
the girls bend over their machines
like saplings driven to the ground
in a heavy snowstorm
until there are only two options:
snap
and crash
to the ground
or
break free
whipping through the air
to stand, quivering and tall.
mercury
There will always be a reason
to set my dreams aside:
my family’s well-being
the workers’ struggle
my own desire to laugh
and dance
and skip my studies
for a trip to the opera.
Am I really so foolish to believe
I can do more
for myself
for Mama
for the workers
if I do not?
But,
how can I leave this fight
flit off to college
when so many still suffer
when I can feel tension
like mercury rising
a wisp of hope
beginning to drift
skyward?
vote
The union brought in Yiddish
and Italian translators
a vote was cast
a strike called
to put an end to the speedups.
For the first time
since I stepped into a garment shop
three years ago
I feel as if
my work
is worthwhile.
sting
At eight o’clock
we march before the shop doors
—pickets—
arm in arm
chanting
while a newspaper man
scribbles notes
&n
bsp; snaps photographs
while the boss watches,
fists on hips
deadlines soaring past.
At nine o’clock
the boss calls in new workers
—scabs—
women so desperate for work
they will betray
their own. Eyes down,
hiding under such tattered
and filthy shmatas
as they walk past our picket line,
I almost pity them.
At ten o’clock
the boss calls in thugs
—gorillas—
who throw us to the ground
with their meaty shoulders,
swinging fists
and kicking like street fighters.
I have no chance against the man
twice as tall
twice as wide
as me
crashing through the crowd
like a scythe
through slender shoots of wheat.
Before I know what has happened
my head smacks
against the pavement
a boot finds soft
tender spots
in my belly;
and I scream
through gritted teeth.
When they are gone,
we lift each other up
dust ourselves off
raise our signs high
sing our marching songs
until our hands stop shaking.
At eleven o’clock
the boss calls in the police
—coppers—
to haul us away
to jail.
It is not the things they said
the bruise on my cheek filling with blood
the gash they opened at my temple
that sting most.
It is my view of the picket line
through the barred window of the police wagon
as we are driven away:
placards litter the street
abandoned
strikers scatter
running for home
running for safety.
I see
how feeble our brave moment is—
how easily rattled
we are.
Is this our way?
Is this what centuries
of persecution
have taught us—
how to run?
locked up
I do not remember choosing
walls rimmed in filth
dank cells,
the concrete sweating
its misery.
When,
exactly,
did I choose
this?
brave
I stand at the bottom of the steps
leading up to our tenement,
gripping the rail,
one foot hovering
above the first step.
It was easier
to be brave
staring down those bullies
with their billy clubs.
My head throbs.
All I want is my bed
but when I finally
climb the stairs
to the second floor
what I get
is shouting.
Clara!
Mama cries
reaching a hand
to cup
my battered face.
We cannot afford a doctor,
Papa says.
How can you be
so selfish?
It is that strike,
says Marcus.
they were all arrested today.
They are criminals.
Papa says,
I forbid you to go back there!
Nathan closes his schoolbook,
a finger holding his place,
eyes darting to Papa
and me
and back again.
A pink stain
creeps along Benjamin’s neck
to the tips of his ears.
He does not turn
to look at me.
I press a hand
against my temple
and answer calmly
as I can.
Just because they arrest us
that does not mean
we are criminals.
What is criminal
is how we are treated.
Please,
I say,
when Papa opens his mouth
to yell some more
let me sleep, Papa.
If you think I must be punished,
very well,
these bruises
have done your work
for you.
I lay my head
softly
against my pillow
Mama brings a cool cloth
gently
lays it against
the deepening bruise.
Tomorrow
when the picket line disperses,
much as I may wish
for my bed
for a hot bath
I know now
if there are bruises
or cuts
I cannot come home
until night
shares her shadows.
if
Pauline and I walk home
through dark
empty streets.
We are different, she and I
no matter how alike our ideas,
she has worked in the factories
since she was a little girl
her dreams
and this fight
are one and the same.
I say,
(as much to myself
as anything)
If I had my choice
I would be at the union offices
tending to contusions
stitching lacerations
for the strikers beaten back
from the picket line,
not offering my own body
as a punching bag.
She says,
But it is your voice
they listen to.
If you are not
on the front lines
when the time comes to rally
the troops to battle,
who will speak for us?
I do not say out loud
that some days it seems
like only a matter of time
before I
and my dreams
are dashed to the ground
trampled under the marching feet
of the picket line.
a different life
After the morning pickets close
before we begin again
in the afternoon
I wrap a shawl around my shoulders
and ride the trolley
north, to a part of the city
where the streets are wide
and clean.
I am careful to go slowly,
stretching a hand
to the nearest brick wall
or spade-tipped fence post.
I arrive just in time
to see students in sterile lab coats
a dozen young men
two young women
mount the stairs and disappear
through the wide doors
of Cornell Medical College.
I perch on a bench across the street
for an hour, maybe two
and imagine a different life
a different fight
for myself.
Not Christians against Jews
or Jews against Jews.
Not rich against poor
or male against female.
A battle of the mind
and deft skill
against the frailties
of the body.
I leave
with an application
tucked into my waistband.
every day
Mama begs,
Do not do this, Clara.
Go to work,
like a good girl.
seams
Sometimes I feel as if I am being pulled apart
by a seam ripper digging down,
lifting the stitches
that hold me together,
slicing them one at a time.
One stitch for Mama
who wishes
for a hardworking daughter.
One stitch for Papa
who wishes
for an obedient daughter.
One stitch for my brothers
who cannot understand
why everything with me
is a fight.
One stitch for the union men
who refuse to take us seriously.
One stitch for the girls
toiling alongside me.
One stitch for the part of me
drawn into the labor fight.
One stitch for the part of me
that sees my dreams slipping
farther from my grasp
with every
single
stitch.
choose
Six months ago,
when I was given the chance
to earn a scholarship
it was no choice at all.
I threw my whole being
into my studies.
But now I carry twin desires
within
and it seems I cannot
do either justice
if it only has
half of me.
If I give up one
If I give up the other
will my heart forget
will my lungs forget
how to push the blood
how to pull in air
through my veins?
to breathe?
ghost limb
They say it is always with you—
the limb that you have lost.
A ghost.
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