If I take this thing that I want
for myself,
how many thousands
of ghosts
will I have to reckon with?
smear
On the picket line,
in the chill of winter,
drifts of snow smear
the words on our placards.
On the picket line,
it is impossible not to think
of the girls
not on strike
home with their families
leaning over the stove
bathing their skin
in the steam
rising from the cook pot.
On the picket line,
a coat, two sets of stockings
and a wool skirt
feel like the thinnest rags
inviting the wind
into every unguarded
flap of cloth.
decline
This fight will swallow me whole
but it is my fight.
I cannot take my escape
while so many still suffer
silently
though I doubt this chance
will ever come my way
again.
In the morning,
I will tell the director
my conscience
will not let me sit out
this fight.
I will tell her
I cannot accept
the scholarship.
But tonight,
it is as though I sit shiva
for myself
for what I might have been.
I bite into my pillow
so Mama cannot hear the sound
of my dreams
like a surgeon’s tray
of scalpels
syringes
corked bottles
and vials swirling with ether,
all
crashing to the floor.
Purim
Three blessings
and the reading of the Megillah.
We hold our noisemakers ready
and rattle them
whenever the name of Haman
the enemy
is spoken.
The little girls wrap themselves
in tablecloths
and bedsheets
taking turns playing Esther,
the queen who saved the Jews.
My brothers wrestle
dance
drink Papa’s wine
when they think he is not looking.
It is a day of feasts
to remember the woman
who rescued our people,
a day when a father
smiles at his daughter.
But behind that smile
I see
that he sees
the daughter he wishes for,
not me,
but the woman he prays
I will one day be.
I take the smile anyway,
and hope someday
he will see
I am brave as Esther
standing up to Haman myself
not asking any husband
to do it for me.
planning (i)
Pauline is teaching me
how to play poker.
Instead of pennies
we cannot afford to risk,
we make our wagers
from the button tin.
While we
shuffle
deal
bluff
bet
fold
we plot
plan
strategize.
I lay my cards flat
push the last of my buttons
into the pile.
All in.
you have a right
In some corners of the world
revolution
looks like peasants
fighting soldiers
or commoners
petitioning the king.
Here, revolution
is everyday people
working together
for the common good.
Are you a union member?
I ask the girls beside me
as they walk to work
and I walk to the picket line.
I cannot,
they say.
I do not want to cause trouble.
They have so many reasons—
My father forbids it.
What if the boss finds out?
He would fire me.
I need this job.
My family has to eat.
But I know these reasons,
I have wrestled them down
myself.
You have a right,
I say,
to work in a shop with a fire escape
and an unlocked door
to the street.
You have a right,
I say,
to take Shabbos off.
You have a right,
I say,
to tell the foreman
to keep his hands to himself.
You are a worker,
I say,
You have rights.
When the streets empty,
the doors to the shops close
and lock the workers inside,
I make my way back
to the union offices.
Against the dawn breaking in the sky
a kestrel
glides between the buildings
small
but fierce.
I flip through the signature cards
memorize the names.
Make no mistake—
this is a revolution.
This morning’s work earned
four more girls
to join the fight.
Joe
A young
printer’s apprentice
comes to the labor meetings
Joe
is his name.
He wears a flat cap
tilted to the side
and a wide
ready smile.
His hands are clean
though the inks have stained
his cuticles
the creases of his knuckles.
Last night
as we filed out
into the warm evening air
I heard him say,
In Russia,
I rode my bicycle
through the streets of Minsk
smuggling revolutionary tracts
under my coat.
My family fought
even though there was little hope
for us there.
Why, then, would we not fight
twice as hard
here, where hope
has a chance
of growing wings?
He was not speaking to me
but I found my footsteps quickening
to linger
in the space
behind him.
Tonight, though he sits
on the opposite side of the room
I can feel my skin stretch
my shoulders opening
twisting in his direction
like a sunflower
pulled along the path of the sun.
peddling
In our shtetl,
as soon as the snows melted
and the ro
ad between towns
became passable
the season of
traveling salesmen
and gypsy caravans began.
I understand
the pressures
that make the girls
want to give up
give in.
They understand
that my wares
may be the only thing
between them
and a fiery death.
But sometimes I feel
like little more
than a traveling salesman
hawking my ideals
to anyone
who will listen.
Mama
In the shtetl
Mama and I worked together
in everything.
She may not have
agreed
with my need
to study
understood
my desire
to learn Russian
condoned
my disobedience
but in the day-to-day
chores in the home
in the store
we worked together.
When we came to this country,
she cooked and cleaned and took in piecework
to keep the household running;
I worked in the shops
to bring home an income.
We needed each other
we relied on each other.
But this strike
is something Mama
cannot abide.
To her,
when I walk out of the shop
willingly
when I forsake my income
when there is no strike fund to pay
for our time
on the picket line
I forsake her trust
I forsake our family.
I have never felt such loneliness
as this morning
when I readied myself for the picket line
and Mama
turned her face away from me.
planning (ii)
shuffle
deal
bluff
bet
fold
plot
plan
The police
will not find it so easy
to beat us with their billy clubs
haul us away to jail
if we lay our fight before the silk skirts
the mink stoles
of society ladies searching
for a worthy cause
to champion
for a worthy target
for their pity.
trash
I have so much
to say.
I wish that my English
were
sharp
as my mind.
But if we speak
it is obvious
we have not been long
in this country.
So we close our lips,
march our pickets up to Fourteenth Street
to the storefronts
where the waists
we make
are on display.
We hold our signs high
wear the best
clothes we own:
shirtwaists pressed and white,
pleated skirts,
spit-shined boots.
We dress like ladies
so they cannot call us
trash.
kestrel
She follows me, I think—
my kestrel.
For her, I walk too slowly,
so she takes the idle time
to circle on summer currents of air.
Only then do I hear her:
killy killy killy killy.
It is probably only
that my walk to the picket line
is along her hunting territory.
But I like to think
she follows me,
at least in part
for the company.
menagerie
Today I am scheduled to speak
at a ladies’ club uptown
to lay out the crimes against us
to speak for all the girls
to sway the opinion
of those with the means
to help.
It is little different
than my sidewalk conversations
my soapbox exhortations
but today, I feel like an animal
on exhibit,
an exotic creature
paraded before
a marveling audience.
silence
I didn’t see you at yesterday’s lecture,
Joe says
as he makes his steps
small and quick
to match mine.
No, I had English class.
He does not ask where I am going
but he walks with me
talking, as if
it were the most natural thing
in the world.
At the library
he sits across from me
a book of revolutionary poems
open before him.
I have never known
silence
to feel so full.
meshuggeneh
Papa’s brow is creased
his eyes dark
as drawn blood.
I forbid you,
he says,
to attend such meetings.
You will come home
immediately
after work.
The banging
in my chest
is so loud
surely
he can hear
my heart
pounding against
my ribs.
I say,
I have worked hard
for this family
but Papa,
do you want me working
in a firetrap?
Do you want me working
for a tyrant?
I will bring home an income again
when the work is just.
Until then, I will strike
and I will spend my evenings
as I choose.
The hiss of Mama’s
indrawn breath
is sharp.
I walk out the door
before Papa’s anger has time to uncoil
before Papa’s hand has time to curl
into a fist.
But before I leave
I catch
a glimpse
of Benjamin’s stricken face,
the rosy blooms of color
high on Nathan’s cheekbones,
I hear
Marcus’s coarse whisper
meshuggeneh.
My own family
thinks I am crazy.
How can I blame them?
What sane person would believe
after all we have seen
after all we have suffered
that this world
will ever
change?
blaze
1909
divide
Two months we held out
held the line
held our heads high.
We were so close . . .
then,
last night the bosses
hired translators
told the It
alian girls
we hate them;
we strike only
to be rid of them.
No matter how we tried
to lay bare
their lie,
this morning
the Italian girls
returned to their workstations.
By day’s end
our strike was broken.
It is a tactic as old
as the stars:
divide
and conquer.
blacklist
When a strike is over
when it is broken
most of the workers
go back to their stools
go back to their stitches
even if nothing
has changed.
But for a special few
the instigators
the ringleaders
our names go on a blacklist;
we cannot go back to work
even if we want to.
waltz
Because I have been out of work so long
Mama could not afford
the kosher butcher this week.
When I come home
long after the others have gone to bed
a plate of oily lung goulash
waits for me,
cooling on the stove.
Because I have been out of work so long
Nathan has left school
has taken a job
at a pyrography shop.
When I come home
long after the others have gone to bed
our apartment smells of sawdust
and singed wood.
Strikers like marionettes
dance through my dreams,
waltzing
through fields of orange-tipped flames.
uptown
I know I will have to give a false name
find a new shop
soon
but I cannot stay cooped up
like so many pigeons
on the rooftops of this city
waiting for a chance to fly.
If I do not speak the words
that have been building up
like a tower inside me
ready to topple,
I will last little more than a day
in the next shop
before they tumble out of me
again.
I do not even have
the nickel fare
for the subway running uptown
so after I drop six more membership cards
at the union office
I walk all the way to Herald Square,
where shiny storefronts
sell the wares made
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