On the Line

•

Women working graveyard
shift into altered states as they bend,
numbed gloved fingers
reaching, pushing dull green spears
against the barrier, steadied
for the blade. Wet aprons, rubber caps,
a smell not metal, not quite earth—
snakes, sometimes a stunned frog riding
the river of asparagus, hiss-
escape of steam the thread
that weaves their stories, hush
of waking dream (no talking
on the line): the fist-sized hole
in Maggie's wall, the kids,
the new calves scouring. Imogene—
ten years—promoted
to the canner, 30 cents an hour
more and look, she gets to sit.
This new one, Angelina,
is there someone at home to rub her back?

Muffled voices muted when the man comes
with his clipboard. He watches, measuring
who knows what—acute
angles of pain? No need to explain: what he says
counts. They count by breaks,
five minutes at the end of every hour,
narrow crack of light
out on the loading dock, the night air finally cooling
when Angelina feels the baby quicken
there below her heart, this life
almost invisible, like that red tip
of someone's distant cigarette,
truck lights out on the highway turning in,
the Dipper still too high
to spill the morning star
and let the line of day women
materialize behind them, shadow spirits
waiting for the whistle to step forward
as women working graveyard
shift aside.