Womanhood
By Catherine Anderson
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.
Friday Five
1. If you had the chance to meet someone you've never met, from the past or present, who would it be?
Jesus Christ. I desperately want to hear directly from his mouth what he said.
2. If you had to live in a different century, past or future, which would it be?
I always wanted to live in Star Trek's future, with peaceful coexistence among the inhabitants of hundreds of cultures and instantaneous communication and a library computer that could access anything ever written anywhere. And you know, technologically, in some ways we've come close to creating that future. And in other ways I believe less that it's possible now than I did when I was a child.
3. If you had to move anywhere else on Earth, where would it be?
There are a lot of places I've always wanted to live for a year -- Britain, Israel, the South Pacific. But permanently? In spite of everything I wouldn't want to leave the United States. I just want America back the way it was meant to be, moving forward instead of backward.
4. If you had to be a fictional character, who would it be?
Mulan in the Disney film. She rocks.
5. If you had to live with having someone else's face as your own for the rest of your life, whose would it be?
Yeesh, I have no idea! I mean, Lee Remick and Grace Kelly were both gorgeous but if I looked like them I wouldn't be me.
Red/Green/Blue: To you, the world is logical. Everything happens
for a reason, life is scientific. You like to
find solutions. I doubt you needed to take this
quiz in order to realize this.
What color do you see the world in?
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Am still on the Isle of Denial. Therefore, things that make me smile:
Aragorn/Boromir angst by
Really lovely drawing of Sean Bean that a fan sent
And of course I don't ever read RPS but if I did I would have howled aloud at "Ink Stains" by
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