Confession in a Booth at the Hollow Log Lounge

I seam towels for Dundee over in Georgia,

a non-union sweatshop with a dozen

rows of them blue glass windows all around.

Some of ’em says it’s like a church.

Been there fourteen years, since just before

me and Hubert said vows at Devotee Baptist.

We’ve been divorced since eighty-four.

Seems he had another woman on the side.

Yessir, I been cold and warmed my hands

at the motor of my jury-rigged machine,

been Florida-hot and deaf from the fans

that don’t do a damn bit of earthly good,

for me at least. I’m right fleshy, as you

can see. Been so hot I’d get the hives

and swell up like sourdough rising, but

I hardly miss a sick day, you understand.

I hate the feel when another woman’s

been sewing on my machine. Substitutes

will break a needle or jack the floating

bobbin out of line. They don’t give a hoot.

It ain’t like they got a steady station

or reputation to uphold. This working’s

almost a moral thing, Preacher Wilkes

would say, like marriage, and every thread

has got to be caught in the hem’s edge

so the whole towel won’t ravel first time

some salesman in a motel or shoe clerk

in his own home after a sweaty day

dries off from a cold shower bath. You see,

I know it don’t take no giant brain

to sit behind a Singer machine and stitch

hour after hour, but I’m proud just the same.

I’m regular as a clock, and I don’t dare fiddle

with another worker’s machine. Some nights

I lie in my bed, once was my mother’s,

and watch the gas flame jump beautiful blue

as the mill’s windows and wonder how many

skins have been wiped dry on my towels,

and whose. It gives me a blushy pride

right on the edge of sleep. I’m over here

tonight with my sister Lily and her husband,

Buddy, supposed to be having a fine time

instead of talking my whole life at you.

This country and western band, specially

the drummer in a blue silk shirt, makes me

want to eat a hot pig’s foot, drink beer,

and shake my tail. Let’s show ’em a thing

or two. You ain’t married just now, are you?

Copyright Credit: R. T. Smith, “Confession in a Booth at the Hollow Log Lounge” from The Hollow Log Lounge. Copyright © 2003 by R. T. Smith. Used with the permission of the poet and the University of Illinois Press.

Source: The Hollow Log Lounge (2003)