Audacity

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by Melanie Crowder


  in grimy shops

  in the slums.

  My English is not ready

  for a hearty debate

  but the truth is simple.

  I can speak in simple sentences.

  I wait until a crowd gathers

  at lunch

  around the food carts

  I step onto a stack of slippery dailies

  and shout,

  Do you know

  how your clothing

  is made?

  You there—

  I point to a woman

  wearing a white shirtwaist

  tucked into an elegant skirt,

  holding the hand

  of a little girl

  with ribbons in her hair.

  Do you know that waist was made

  by teenage girls,

  some who make

  no more than three dollars a week?

  Do you know that those shops

  hire girls

  your daughter’s age

  to trim the threads

  when they should be in school?

  The crowd looks from me

  to the woman

  to the child

  to their own clothes

  white

  and pressed

  and clean.

  This corner of the street has fallen silent

  I no longer have to shout.

  What will you do,

  I ask,

  to set things right?

  honest

  Louis Leiserson was one of us

  who moved up the ranks

  until he got a shop of his own.

  I hope

  if I work for an honest employer

  a man who respects the workers

  I can bring home a wage to Mama

  and

  do my work for the union.

  On my morning walk to Leiserson’s

  I spot a cracked cobble

  in front of the bakery.

  Out of the sliver of exposed dirt

  a little tree

  is trying to grow

  no bigger than a weed

  sprouting three

  tear-shaped leaves

  and reaching

  with impossible optimism

  toward the sky.

  a lot to learn

  I should have spent more time before,

  learning English

  but I could not help myself—

  I was so hungry for

  ideas

  I had little time for

  primers

  and the domestic phrases

  they teach in the classes for girls.

  I may not be studying for exams

  anymore

  but if I want my voice to be heard

  by those who wield the power

  I have a lot to learn, still,

  of English.

  If I have union meetings

  two nights a week

  lectures to attend

  three nights a week

  Shabbos

  Friday nights

  still, there is one night left

  for an English class.

  I practice

  under my breath

  as I pin and snip,

  try to make my tongue

  shake this thick accent

  as I tuck and twist and stitch.

  overtime

  After work,

  outside the grimy doors

  of an underwear shop,

  Pauline and I

  press circulars

  into the sweaty hands

  of workers held at their stations

  without compensation

  long after the workday

  is done.

  We say,

  There is power in organizing.

  We say,

  You do not have to suffer

  alone.

  They take the papers,

  but sometimes

  it seems

  as if only the birds

  are listening.

  a gift

  I have given up trying to sit

  across the room

  from Joe.

  His particular smell

  of soap

  presswash

  and paper

  is familiar to me now.

  Comforting, even.

  In between the lecture

  on the importance of educating

  the lower class

  and the one on the eradication

  of child labor

  he hands me

  a steno pad.

  For your words,

  he says.

  I nod

  run my fingers over the crisp

  lined white pages,

  tuck the book

  into the breast pocket

  of my coat.

  My voice is strong

  on the soapbox

  in the union halls

  but if I speak now

  I fear

  it will

  betray me.

  lies

  Mr. Leiserson says,

  I respect the union

  I respect the workers’ rights

  I only have to lay off workers

  because the fashion in sleeves

  has changed.

  He tells us this

  while he sends work to a second shop

  filled with Italian girls

  working in squalor

  for half the pay.

  Mr. Leiserson’s lies

  burn

  so hot

  I think

  my skin will steam

  with the heat of it.

  uninvited

  When lunch is called

  and the delivery boys

  fill the doorway

  with their baskets of cake and pretzels

  and sliced cheese sandwiches

  whispers work their way

  through the crowd of women

  at the door

  The men vote tonight

  yea or nay

  to go on strike.

  We are not invited.

  That night

  I march into their meeting.

  The conversation stops

  as they swivel to stare

  at the girl who dares

  interrupt their business.

  I think,

  how nice of them

  to offer a space

  for my words.

  You will lose,

  I say,

  if you try to strike

  on your own

  without us.

  They will break you.

  It is only by standing together

  —men and women—

  that we can ever hope

  to outlast them.

  I do not wait for their answers

  I have a lecture to attend tonight.

  If my words make them see reason

  they can invite me

  to the next meeting.

  soapbox

  When I step onto a milk crate

  my head is still no higher

  than the crowd

  but my voice

  soars

  like the kestrel

  circling above

  punctuating my

  proselytizing

  with her

  killy killy killy killy.

  The throngs of people

  pause


  tilt their heads

  add their voices

  to mine.

  If I rise onto my tiptoes

  I can see Pauline

  nodding

  the company thugs

  frowning

  Joe

  listening.

  planning (iii)

  shuffle

  deal

  bluff

  bet

  fold

  plot

  plan

  The men

  will not find us

  so easy

  to dismiss

  if we prove ourselves

  on the picket line

  beside them

  day

  after

  day

  after

  day.

  vote

  The next night

  in a hotel room hazy

  with cigarette smoke

  we lay out our demands

  cast our votes

  call for a joint strike

  the whole shop

  —men and women—

  will walk out together

  tomorrow.

  We raise our right hands

  invoke King David’s psalm:

  If I turn traitor

  to the cause I now pledge

  may this hand wither

  from the arm I now raise.

  I clench my jaw

  to keep

  from coughing the smoky air

  out of my lungs

  to keep

  the stern, determined set

  of my face

  from melting into a wide

  jubilant

  smile.

  red light

  Mr. Leiserson knows

  very well

  that this fight hinges

  on public opinion.

  He hires detectives

  sets them like leeches

  on the skin

  to draw out the troublemakers,

  the infected blood.

  He pays prostitutes

  to mingle in our ranks

  stir up trouble

  start fights with the men

  add color

  to the newspaper reports.

  He tells the papers

  we are ungrateful

  ungodly girls,

  the men who strike with us

  our procurers

  in the oldest trade.

  [If a woman is disobedient

  she must be a prostitute.

  If a woman wants an education

  she must be a prostitute.

  If a woman walks out on strike

  of course

  she must be a prostitute.]

  It is hard enough to get the girls

  to walk out in the first place.

  Their families depend

  on the money they bring home.

  Then, when the papers

  call the strikers whores

  their fathers

  or husbands

  call them home again;

  forbid them

  to walk out with us.

  If I ever find the time

  to fall in love

  I will surely choose a man

  who wants a thinking wife.

  dent

  The bosses have sugared the police

  it does not matter

  if I cry out in Yiddish

  Russian

  English

  only that their clubs

  dent

  my flesh

  break

  my will

  crack

  double over

  crack crack

  drop to my knees

  crack

  slump back,

  crack crack

  blinking

  blows fall like rain

  out of a perfectly blue sky.

  part of me

  The strike goes on without me

  for a day;

  the union sent me home

  to rest

  to gather my strength

  to summon my nerve.

  I wanted to say

  I am fine

  those gorillas did not rattle me.

  But today

  I do not feel like a warrior

  brave

  armored

  fierce.

  I feel like a sparrow

  harrying a hawk

  to save her clutch,

  a sparrow

  who only just escaped

  with her life.

  I will be back in front of Leiserson’s tomorrow

  but for now, I sit by the window

  watching the songbirds

  flutter and soar outside, try

  to let my bruises heal

  my head settle,

  let my worries

  flap away on their wings.

  Mama begs,

  No more fighting.

  No more picket lines.

  Please, Clara,

  no more.

  I sigh

  and say,

  It is part of me, Mama.

  Their suffering

  out there

  is part of me.

  ask

  I did not plan to speak so freely

  but he is a fighter

  he knows the toll

  a long, drawn-out battle

  can take.

  So when

  Joe

  asks how our strike is faring

  how I

  am holding up

  my heart spills out of my lips

  before I even decide

  to respond

  I never imagined

  it would take so long

  for the union men to work with us

  for the girls to stand up

  for themselves.

  Some days

  I am just so tired

  of fighting.

  Some days

  I want only to sit

  at the evening table

  with my family

  and feel no scorn

  no disappointment

  no heartbreak.

  Some days

  I wish some other girl

  would fight this fight

  instead.

  He offers no easy answer

  but what a difference

  it makes

  to be asked.

  planning (iv)

  shuffle

  deal

  bluff

  bet

  fold

  plot

  plan

  The girls

  will find strength

  in numbers

  strength in a strike

  that stretches beyond

  the doors

  of a single shop

  starting with our own:

  Triangle and Leiserson’s

  marching

  to the same songs

  at the same time

  with the same voice.

  Triangle

  The leaves are turning

  burgundy, mustard, vermilion.

  When the wind blows,

  they dance like flames.

  Pauline says,

  You must stop employing children.

  The bosses say,


  What children?

  Pauline says,

  You cannot lock the factory doors

  from the outside.

  The bosses say,

  The workers are thieves—

  how else can we protect our inventory?

  Pauline says,

  You must repair the fire escape.

  The bosses say,

  Let them burn.

  They are all just a bunch of cattle

  anyway.

  And so, today,

  while I march

  in front of Leiserson’s,

  150 workers

  from the Triangle Waist Factory

  march in front of the Asch Building.

  The foremen sneer down

  from nine stories up.

  Chant and march,

  march and chant

  drowning out the clatter

  stitch, gather

  stitch, gather

  stitch, gather

  stitch, gather

  of hundreds of machines

  upstairs.

  slander

  When the workday ends

  and the picket line closes

  we hurry

  heads down

  shoulders hunched

  against the wind,

  against fallen leaves

  hurled like spoiled tomatoes

  against our skirts.

  The door to the union office sweeps open

  we are folded into blankets

  ushered onto cushioned chairs.

  The woman who hands me a teacup

  filled and piping hot

  as much to warm my hands

  as anything

  has the soft skin

  unweathered cheeks

  pitying eyes

  of a fine lady

  from uptown.

  I take the teacup

  and the pity, too.

  She places a hand mirror

  a delicate white kerchief

  on the chair beside me.

  This will never work,

  I say

  to the room

  to anyone who will listen

  when my mouth has thawed enough

  to open and close

  as it should,

  a few hundred of us

  on the picket lines

  while so many thousands more

  wait at their workstations

  until their own suffering

  spills over

  onto the sidewalks.

  What we need

  is a general strike,

  all the shops, together.

  No one gives in

  until we win.

  The room erupts

 

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