Summer 1981, between worse and better jobs, I found work
at "Ruth's Originals," outside a North Carolina mountain town
in a large metal rectangle, one door, no windows, no AC, inside
walls a gray no imagination could improve, along with 40 other
women, to the whining roar of racehorse sewing machines
we rode, stitching flowery fabric into expensive dresses for little
girls, our backs hunched, our lungs sucking in lint-decorated air
as cheap thread broke every few minutes in the hard gear mouths,
lured on by a few cents extra for the fast who had worked there
so long that their feet and hands extended into machines, yet
two 10 minute breaks were the opportunity to line up at four
stalls, hope to get relief in time, as the chances of stitching
fingers together instead of fabric tightened our bladders, while
during the 30 minute lunch break I could choose not to sit
at tables in front of the stalls and numbly eat from a nosebag
lunch, but bolt for the one door, to wall-less air, to sunlit blue
and green, alone with book or music, until I had spent my furlough
and the heavy metal door again enclosed me with machines.
