wakes at four thirty and has some time
to drink her coffee and have a f*&king cigarette
before she has to be on the job with these assholes
she chops potatoes and peels carrots
and puts a roast in the crockpot
so it will smell good when she comes home
and they’ll have dinner ready when she’s dead
after the work, and her husband on pain killers
and back broke in bed all day can’t do nothing anyway
cleaning his f*&king bed pan and trying to get him
comfortable in his condition, what it must have been like
when they fell for each other and got together
it was before my time of knowing her
a woman impervious on construction site to bullet eyes
and sexist rants, she shredded the men
in acid taunts and cuss chains that withered the meaty
like salt on slugs, she small-sized still could holler
at me, get your young ass over here at the time
and costs more if you watch to the guys when we were high on ladders
and mother f*&ker c*&k sucker when something’s
irritating, said loud like cloud she made a bottom up
weather system of curse word propelled protection
so we could work, alongside Animal Man and Road Kill
and any other number of 100 white men vs the two of us
Bobbi the Woman, here’s to your Work
and for making it easier for the rest of us
in the world of construction
Poet, Jenifer Rae Vernon, by American River, Rancho Cordova, Calif., 2020. Photo by Alex Zenner.
Jenifer Rae Vernon, grew up in a small town and a big blue-collar family in Washington state. She worked seven years in drywall and paint and went from a GED to a PhD. Today she lives with her little family in northeast California and teaches full-time at a community college. She was awarded a Tillie Olsen from the Working-Class Studies Association for her book of poetry Rock Candy, West End press.
*Image, Bianca Consantin, Unsplash.
A powerful voice for an unrecognized woman hero.