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She fights with semi-folded arms,

Her strong bag, and the stiff

Frost of her face (that challenges “When” and “If.”)

And altogether she does Rather Well.

Night Waitress

LYNDA HULL

Reflected in the plate glass, the pies

look like clouds drifting off my shoulder.

I’m telling myself my face has character,

not beauty. It’s my mother’s Slavic face.

She washed the floor on hands and knees

below the Black Madonna, praying

to her god of sorrows and visions

who’s not here tonight when I lay out the plates,

small planets, the cups and moons of saucers.

At this hour the men all look

as if they’d never had mothers.

They do not see me. I bring the cups.

I bring the silver. There’s the man

who leans over the jukebox nightly

pressing the combinations

of numbers. I would not stop him

if he touched me, but it’s only songs

of risky love he leans into. The cook sings

with the jukebox, a moan and sizzle

into the grill. On his forehead

a tattooed cross furrows,

diminished when he frowns. He sings words

dragged up from the bottom of his lungs.

I want a song that rolls

through the night like a big Cadillac

past factories to the refineries

squatting on the bay, round and shiny

as the coffee urn warming my palm.

Sometimes when coffee cruises my mind

visiting the most remote way stations,

I think of my room as a calm arrival

each book and lamp in its place. The calendar

on my wall predicts no disaster

only another white square waiting

to be filled like the desire that fills

jail cells, the old arrest

that makes me stare out the window or want

to try every bar down the street.

When I walk out of here in the morning

my mouth is bitter with sleeplessness.

Men surge to the factories and I’m too tired

to look. Fingers grip lunch box handles,

belt buckles gleam, wind riffles my uniform

and it’s not romantic when the sun unlids

the end of the avenue. I’m fading

in the morning’s insinuations

collecting in the crevices of buildings,

in wrinkles, in every fault

of this frail machinery.

In an Iridescent Time

RUTH STONE

My mother, when young, scrubbed laundry in a tub,

She and her sisters on an old brick walk

Under the apple trees, sweet rub-a-dub.

The bees came round their heads, the wrens made talk.

Four young ladies each with a rainbow board

Honed their knuckles, wrung their wrists to red,

Tossed back their braids and wiped their aprons wet.

The Jersey calf beyond the back fence roared;

And all the soft day, swarms about their pet

Buzzed at his big brown eyes and bullish head.

Four times they rinsed, they said. Some things they starched,

Then shook them from the baskets two by two,

And pinned the fluttering intimacies of life

Between the lilac bushes and the yew:

Brown gingham, pink, and skirts of Alice blue.

Madam and Her Madam

LANGSTON HUGHES

I worked for a woman,

She wasn’t mean—

But she had a twelve-room

House to clean.

Had to get breakfast,

Dinner, and supper, too—

Then take care of her children

When I got through.

Wash, iron, and scrub,

Walk the dog around—

It was too much,

Nearly broke me down.

I said, Madam,

Can it be

You trying to make a

Pack-horse out of me?

She opened her mouth.

She cried, Oh, no!

You know, Alberta,

I love you so!

I said, Madam,

That may be true—

But I’ll be dogged

If I love you!

Letters from Storyville

NATASHA TRETHEWEY

December 1910

Miss Constance Wright

I Schoolhouse Road

Oakvale, Mississippi

My Dearest Constance,

I am not out-of-doors as you feared,

and though I’ve had to tuck the blue, wool suit

you gave me, I do now have plenty to eat.

I have no doubt my decision will cause you

much distress, but still I must tell you—

when I had grown too weary to keep up

my inquiries and my rent was coming

due, I had what must be considered

the good fortune to meet Countess P—,

an elegant businesswoman who offered

me a place in her house. I did not accept

then, though I had tea with her—the first

I’d had in days. And later, too hungry

to reason, I spent the last of my