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Audacity

Page 12

by Melanie Crowder


  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 streetr />
  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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