I swore I was leaving every week for two months,
so no one took me very seriously when I
finally collected my last check.
“Dime she’ll be back in 10 days.”
That way, we didn’t have to cry.
It wasn’t like you’d never seen me cry before,
or the cigarette never trembled between your fingers.
Your fingers...
quick and steady,
slid between steel and
whirling thread, twiddling with the chain of a necklace or
tobacco ash. And we’d talk ourselves hoarse,
voices straining over the rows of machines,
talk about everything, or most of the time, really nothing,
but we made it everything.
Stepping out through the heavy doors,
three blocks to the car, forty minutes back up the mountain,
the gusty calm, the wearied hush
was overwhelming.
The strange firm lightness of a paring knife,
crisp, even stripes of red pepper on
the white cutting board,
stiff-backed wicker chairs,
air sucked empty.
It found me again sometimes at night,
the hum prickling just under my skin,
rippling across my back
probing my abdomen,
tickling the arch of my feet.
It’s fitting, somehow, that the thrum and whir
of bobbin and machinery would press itself so
insistently against my forehead and eardrums,
into every crevice of my body.
Beacon filled our lives.
Fed my children. Bought my car,
built my house. I never missed work,
I was always there, thirteen years, four months,
six days.
Couldn’t get halfway down the street
before you were always seeing two, three
faces, swapping greetings, throwing up your hand
if they were across the road. Just like any
little country town, just a nice country town,
country people.
Someone go to the canteen,
they’d bring you back a Coca-cola
and a sandwich or something.
They could never have shook me off,
I’d have clung like lint.
But I did leave.
Not a whole lot changed.
My fingertips adjusted quickly to flat metal
keys, found a new rhythm of clattering and
shuffling. Familiar bustle of voices.
Or cross-legged
in a dining room chair,
index fingers wrapped carefully around
the edges of crisp white paper.
I didn’t ever go back to visit.
I wanted to,
but there were rules about that.
Did keep in touch with some of them,
and I’ve got a home
full of Beacon blankets.
Author notes
community art project. based loosely on an interview with ruby killough, who worked in the spinning department for 13 years. beacon was a blanket mill in swannanoa, north carolina. all comments welcome!
(april 2008)
Comments
1 - 6 of 6
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This is a life encompassed and informed by your words. It is so real, it is so solid, it is a statement about not just one life, but millions of lives. You have captured a reality here -- and that is remarkable. You have elevated the commonplace to a work of art. I am simply stunned.
Excellent, superb -- add 20 other superlatives of your choice.
Thank you for this one. I really appreciate it.
Garrison
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I was simply taken by this.
From start to finish, so completely engrossing.
Seemingly perfectly picked words.... Each line effectively layering this story with more and more depth.
Absolutly superb!
Jamie
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very well done. really liked your images.
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very sensual in a tasteful way. " forty minutes back up the mountain," there's something like a child in this, asking again and again, are we almost there?
It ties in well with the imagery of the "red pepper"--I love that, I think it's bright enough to catch the eye. what did you mean by "beacon filled out lives?" Anyways, I think the way you personify it in the next stanza is really cool. "fed my children." the speaker grows up in that line. I also especially enjoyed "clung like lint." its such a pinch, the one syllables really sink in.
the whole casual style of the piece leaves little room for criticism. it's not a work of art, its as flawed and self-righteous as every day life.
okay i just got to the end and realized what "Beacon" meant. but i can sense there's also a double meaning there--the town stands out like a beacon to you, a point of change. I think this piece definitely proves that the best inspiration often comes from lives outside our own. Cool write.
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You have completely captured this place...the spirit of comraderie among the employees..the sense of loss you experienced when you left. The personal details made this very real to me. It was long, but I was fascinated the entire time I was reading. That says much for your skill as a poet.
I could really relate to the way the sounds and sensations of a workplace stick with you even after you are gone. I worked the drive through at a fast food restaurant for several years in high school. Late at night, lying in my bed, I could still hear the beep of the headset. Lol.
Thanks for sharing.
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