“At the Scrub Board”

This poem goes to the laundrymat at home
in Alabama—yes, I know it’s laundromat!
But that’s now how we pronounce it there--

The clouds woke up early this morning, talking
to each other, first a patter, then a long cackling
boom, they washed us and swished us, everything
was out of focus, 11 a.m. Sunday morning,
I might as well go to the laundrymat, everyone
would be in church. But when I arrived, every
machine was spinning, all the other odd-not-even
ones had the same idea: there were blue dragons
guarding the door of a grey SUV; a harried single
white woman slamming the dryer doors like gears
between shifts; three Mexicanos who’d ironed
their denim shirts; a family, three-year-old girl,
young Asian woman, older white man, crimped
and trembling; a very young skinny white guy,
a tattoo shadow hiding in the nape of his thin neck.
He stands outside smoking a cigarette, furiously,
he’s talking to one of the Latinos, their hands
squared and angled, pointing, some information
exchanged, with me too, as I watch and guess,
not much like the Sunday school cut-felt stories
I saw pressed onto the flannel easel, the camel,
the rich man, the eye of the needle, the teacher
a banker who bribed us to come and listen,
that thrilling ride after church in his personal plane
over my house, Mama waving under, small, smaller,
up over the grey-green trees, the hump-backed
little hills, the river threading between, the town,
the county spread out and waiting to be folded up
and put in his pocket, he said he’d keep it safe.
I see the eye of the future looking back my way,
the rain pours down, we keep putting quarters
into the thunder-rolling machines that don’t
belong to us, tomorrow’s Monday, and how we
get there, me and my neighbors who do
our own washing, that’s for us to figure out.


Minnie Bruce Pratt

Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivs
Creative Commons 2010

“At U.S. 82 and Alabama 25 & 219”

This was the National Day to Defend Education—hundreds of strong actions
across the U.S. I drove from my home town to Tuscaloosa,
where Students in Solidarity with the Crimson Ride Shuttle Drivers
& the local SDS chapter rallied to support workers fighting for
a union, a living wage and respect at my alma mater, the U of Alabama.
More on that later--for now, here's a poem in honor of the day.

This is a place people usually pass through, twix
n’ tween, intersection, no conjunction, just a way
to somewhere else. Not the crows this morning,
stunt diving tricks between the power lines. Not me,
I was raised here, I come back all the, all the time.
But the Walmart rigs roll through, the log trucks
with pine trunks pale as skinned knees, how mine
hurt on the gravel at recess, the mercurochrome
stung, like memories coming, going, then gone,
then suddenly standing by me as I pick up shed tree
limbs in the yard and whirl them into the woods,
by me, in me, her arm arches and hand extends,
the impatient vigor, the vim, the stubbornness.
Once I brought a friend to visit, and disappointed,
she said: It’s so small, I thought it was bigger,
much bigger, the way you talked about it. She’d
grown up in a city, she had this notion big things
only come from big places. Anyone who thinks that
could stop, and just look at a word, or at a hand.

For my article on the Crimson Ride drivers’ struggle, see:
http://www.workers.org/2010/us/alabama_bus_drivers_0318/index.html


Minnie Bruce Pratt

Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivs
Creative Commons 2010

“Smelling Skunk”

Here’s how I know I live up North: it’s snowing,
I go out for my walk, the zest of ice stings my face,
the whole neighborhood smells like skunk. No,
I’m not putting here down, especially not the skunk,
poor fellow wanders the night streets to burrow
into shelter. But at home his black-and-white coat
(striped like that guy’s walking past), at home
that coat would get him all through winter outdoors.
Look: poverty is the same there as here, and not.
The trailer park Daniel writes about, the swampdirt
shit no sump the children run through and laugh,
the landlord takes the money and does nothing,
thin metal walls, like an oven baking in summer
indoors. Here the walls are brick thick plaster,
inside now people lean into the gas oven’s mouth,
heat reddens their faces like the sun’s breath.

Minnie Bruce Pratt

Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivs
Creative Commons 2010