An Opening In a Small Town

An Opening in a Small Town


I lived in a cotton town where the mouth
of the mill fell open each morning
and the people disappeared into the neck of it.
They said I could work there too,
when I was sixteen, and I did, but the lint
settled on my lashes & in my throat.
The knitting machines could not stop.
Heavy rolls of cloth were cut loose for replacement.
Production rose each time it was reached,
which caused a frenzy of desperation.
That summer, at sixteen, I had no desire
to thread or tie or tear anything but dreams,
because mine were in chaos.
Of course I wanted more.
I meant to carve abandoned mornings
of pleasure and brand new destinations
San Francisco & cable cars & Arizona,
where I hoped to follow tumbleweeds
into the evening of a cactus bloom.
I thought of walking in New York.
I thought of Emily in Amherst
and believed I would dress in black & white
for a whole year of my life.
But instead, from three in the evening
until eleven at night, I walked the concrete floors.
I ate cheese crackers & hurried back to my machines.
I asked permission to go to the bathroom.
I stood in line for my paycheck and listened
to the women curse the secretary,
who refused to release the checks until exactly three.
When I turned seventeen, I ran away to the beach &
found a job reaching life jackets around the waists
of women, children, men, again and again,
so that they could ride the water safely.
It was an amusement park & the colors burst
into a red/yellow/orange against the greens & blues
& I wore white & turned brown & I did everything
I could think to do in the sunlight.
Each evening the ocean threw up new shells on the sand.
I gathered them pinkly to whisper in their ears,
I murmured closely to them, a  million golden hues.

Reviews

[...]

This is so wonderful, I enjoyed this write alot.

[W.k.kortas]

I will echo the "wow"-worthiness of the piece. It is somewhat more straightforward than the general run of your work, but it is still rife with the singular, unique imagery that is yours alone (Venablese?). The wows are bestowed rightly here.

[Emily B]

wow, is right, only you would think to whisper in the ears of unhappy shells washed up in beaches. I like the way you used the cotton mill instead of the coal mine.

I like the way you contrasted Emily's black and white dress with "I wore white and turned brown."

I felt like I grew up with the narrator you. 16 and 17 are such big years for dreams and things. I would hope I'd run away to. . . but then sometimes what we run away to isn't any better than what we're running from. Alas, I speak from such a far-away place to 17.

[Steve]

Wow, this poem is so good, for me personally the best poem i have read in a long time and i think the best ive read on this site so far. Its so effortless yet there is so much meaning to each and every line, you are so talented!

'where I hoped to follow tumbleweeds
into the evening of a cactus bloom.'

Wow, again. I'll definately be checking out your other pieces. Thankyou for a great read