september 1934 at chiquola mill - christiana doucette

The machine rips into the country cotton bolls

shiny teeth jawing as thin shells pop and snap.

Picker sticks poke old hickory in

snatching young twigs before they can harden. 

They press flat as the snarl of the supervisor

snaps them to attention, tension winding tight. 

What invention is this that warped their world.

Mill town home. Mill town food.

Mill town church. Mill town rude awakening. 

Talk of banding together looms large

as the workers shuttle back and forth.

A boy sucks his finger for a sliver. 

Four slivers to a single strand. They band together

snag on a can, it spins them round and round.

Threads their yarn tight. Heads bob up and down.

Threads snapped here can’t be retwisted.

They must be tied, nots pulled hard to keep order.

The mill town boarder just breaking even

as the dust boll lines the walls with hunger

numbers just how much he owes.

Just how much he’s been lent.

Just how much longer he can pull this thread

through his eye and not end up on the street.

And the meat isn’t enough. And the knees wear through

and they’re making bricks without the straw

their union Moses only pulling more work

into fewer hours. How is anyone supposed to live.

And the harness lifts the threads,

separates them into intricate patterns,

each creel its own reel, its own unique bolt set. 

A dozen hours a day for a half dozen dollars a day

from a dozen years of age, brown lung dyeing them young.

Their yarns unravel, never travel beyond the mill

Beyond the looms. Beyond small rooms. Beyond 

Mill town club. Mill town school. Mill town mayor. 

Maybe a mill town tomfool for hoping for more.

Christiana Doucette spends mornings in her garden weeding because just like poetry, flowers grow best with space to breathe. She has judged poetry for San Diego Writer’s Festival for the past three years. Her poetry has appeared in anthologies, been set to music by opera composers, and performed on NPR.