Women's Work

[bianca.a.palmisano]

Thanks for the opportunity to read this! There's some wonderful and evocative phrasing in here, but I'm struck by the tonal difference between the first two stanzas, which have a lot of very short lines, feels staccato and sparse, and the third stanza where you use a lot of repetition "kind of a man" as an echo. The lines of the third stanza feel much longer, more legato, and I'm not sure if that's intended? Good luck working on it!

This refuge along Parkway
where one returns after
emptying Fridays pay-
just to loosen lips,
and feet,
smells like
mother's macaroni,  <-- definitely your most unique phrasing; I like it
cool grease,
stumbling nights,
and strolling days.

Here I, 
in an apron that long since
failed to contain my
growing hips,
sway between
plywood corridors,
speckled with imitation  <-- I feel like you can find a better word than imitation to show that the place is cheap
silver and porcelain.

As I bent to bus
a four-top I'd  <-- I'm perplexed by this line break
picked up
from the ewe-eyed auburn,
slowly,
then all  <-- and this one
at once
the rough inseam
broke
in a small deluge  <-- LOVE these two lines, unique phrasing
of soft flesh.

Manager Benji was a real   <-- This change of perspective feels abrupt; your last two stanzas are written from a close 1st person perspective; this stanza has distance to it
gold chain chest
hair kind of a man.
Stomach back crotch
forward kind of a man.
tear the tears from you
with his teeth kind of a man:  <-- I like these lines in isolation, they just seem odd after the first two stanza
A man who fancied
himself a Man.

As he shook the house
he spittled into me
the spangled truth;
we own this space.
What a terrible excess
of mulled Blood in his Dick, <-- I'm not sure what this means? And the profanity seems tonally a little strange compared to the rest of the poem
to address us,
as such,
in our own kingdom.
so I took my exposed
boyshorts,
regal in their way,
and I sauntered out with dignity
alone intact.

In my car,
I began
to put the rest of
myself 
back together.  <-- I'm a sucker for a clear ending. This is nice. Personally, I would change the line breaks to "In my car/ I began to put the rest/ of myself/back together.