Womanhood

She slides over
the hot upholstery
of her mother’s car,
this schoolgirl of fifteen
who loves humming & swaying
with the radio.
Her entry into womanhood
will be like all the other girls’—
a cigarette and a joke,
as she strides up with the rest
to a brick factory
where she’ll sew rag rugs
from textile strips of Kelly green,
bright red, aqua.

When she enters,
and the millgate closes,
final as a slap,
there’ll be silence.
She’ll see fifteen high windows
cemented over to cut out light.
Inside, a constant, deafening noise
and warm air smelling of oil,
the shifts continuing on . . .
All day she’ll guide cloth along a line
of whirring needles, her arms & shoulders
rocking back & forth
with the machines—
200 porch size rugs behind her
before she can stop
to reach up, like her mother,
and pick the lint
out of her hair.

:: Catherine Anderson

Jonas

We were threshing envelope after white envelope
on a conveyor in redundant Detroit,
your sons bought you twenty-four Dutch Masters,

Jonas Raimundas

one hangs from your lip like a bitten sausage.
It is amazing how your mouth moves around it;
you are speaking Lithuanian to the gears,
and to me you are saying again
how they first shot your mother and then your father.
You rolled the muslin wrapped bodies to the sea
because it was January;
you were fifteen,
your shoulders could not break the earth,
and now, at night, you believe
the Baltic is rising over there while
you are here.
Your uncles have always said
you have dark hair,
the color of your mother’s,
and eyes, too,
as blue, as deep as ikons.

:: Catherine Anderson