04-22-2023, 11:17 PM
Ring Around the Rosie
Day shift, night shift, mids.
It’s all the same, flush-riveting
steel and aluminum.
Giving her fat arms, it is
(of course it’s muscle but
unfashionable in
that bare-shoulder teddy
she’s saving, saving for
when John comes home).
For now, there’s only
other riveters - Two-As
or with families,
the rest of her circle
ladies like herself
losing their hearing
and their svelte looks
making these big silver airplanes
beautiful...
Round, glassed-in noses,
wings attached with micron-interference bolts
(a Two-A told her that
while making a pass - declined).
Next rivet. Next.
Sometimes she gives her planes names:
Mollie, Betty.
Her own name (sigh) always went
with that stupid rhyme:
...ashes, ashes,
all fall down!
For this one, though, something special–
maybe Enola.
Day shift, night shift, mids.
It’s all the same, flush-riveting
steel and aluminum.
Giving her fat arms, it is
(of course it’s muscle but
unfashionable in
that bare-shoulder teddy
she’s saving, saving for
when John comes home).
For now, there’s only
other riveters - Two-As
or with families,
the rest of her circle
ladies like herself
losing their hearing
and their svelte looks
making these big silver airplanes
beautiful...
Round, glassed-in noses,
wings attached with micron-interference bolts
(a Two-A told her that
while making a pass - declined).
Next rivet. Next.
Sometimes she gives her planes names:
Mollie, Betty.
Her own name (sigh) always went
with that stupid rhyme:
...ashes, ashes,
all fall down!
For this one, though, something special–
maybe Enola.
Non-practicing atheist