They ask her where she was born,
despite the team sweatshirt she wears
as she works quietly at the cutter
on the floor. At her feet, a litter of pieces
and the sift from contact of fiber with the blades.
Twice a month the machines need oiling: a smell
like old mushrooms lingering in the air.
Her bones? They are small and well suited
for the minute labors repeating like seconds
around the hour— Or so she is told.
She knows how to duck out the door at the sound
of the bell, how to disappear in a sea of faces
divided into shifts: resembling hers,
resembling no one really, she knows.
In response to Via Negativa: Hillbilly.