OUR TOWN Our town was not a town married to a company where uncles, fathers and grandfathers in turn carried lunch pails, coal drab and filled with catsup sandwiches. They did not work for the "Man" in endless days then go to the "Hall" on meeting nights to raise their hands in unison voting for benefits they would not live long enough to receive. I with friends never heard the quittin' whistle blow at six, watched long lines of soot-faced men wearily walk to the corner pub lift pints of frothy brew vowing their sons would never work for the company, their daughters marry company men. Nor did we do a body count brought up from leaky shafts days after, or lie in bed sniffing the oderless gas that permeated dated pitchy mines knowing we might be counted, next time. No crippling fat moms, listening to nightly guttural coughs, watching mates sallow and waste long before mercy took the unwilling host. Ripe virgin sisters were not left to cry nights unnumbered in homes of maiden aunts while orphaned brothers shipped off, never to return from nameless places and I today at fifty-seven reflect with some regret at all I missed being, not being from a company town. MY SIZE They were all there, left behind when he left, checks and plaids, flannels. Today I wear one while weeding the garden. It's worn warm and cozy; maybe it's the shirt or the day or the way I feel being number two. Number two isn't so bad if number one was a rat or a louse as I have been told. The shirt fits me like it was tailor-made and even his name has my size when she calls me by it. | ||
"Our Town" was first published in The Journal of
New Jersey Poets. "My Size" was published in Beyond the Seven Bridges. | ||
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