Читать книгу After Eden - Harold J. Recinos - Страница 26
Factory Work
Оглавлениеthe toy factory where
his mother went to work
was then the only place
hiring broken English
girls with sleepy brown
eyes and dark faces born
on someone else’s land.
she assembled toys with
smiles peeking each day
through her lips, and making
defamatory gestures behind
the white foreman’s back who
had thick disorderly hands. one
afternoon the girls drenched in
tears who had the good sense to
join a labor union went on strike
to fight like gods to win their living
wages and safer times on the assembly
lines. they even said the strike was
the kind of prayer Jesus heard loud
and clear enough to make him take a
stand against the dreaded boss’s fingers
that rested too often on their Puerto
Rican hips. for years she worked in
the toy factory listening each day to her
broken English making sweet sounds like
the grandmothers who came to America
young to give children their best made
dreams. one day without prior notice,
the mother realized these kids feed oatmeal
before school were living a history better
than her years spent wrinkling in a South
Bronx factory.
