Adelaide B. Shaw
Streets Paved With Gold
She is 13 years old. An immigrant. Money is needed and everyone works. She sews buttons on shirts. Ten buttons on each shirt. She works in a cavernous room under a glaring light. A chilling wind whips its way inside through loose window frames. Sewing machines whir non-stop. Dust stings her eyes and clogs her throat. Ten, twelve hours a day shoulders hunched over. She stretches out the ache, drops another button where it is lost in a crack in the wood floor. Too slow. Too slow.
At the end of the week, she collects two dollars and is told not to come back.
ice patches
under a glaring sun
learning a new walk
About the Author
Adelaide B. Shaw lives in Somers, New York. She has been creating Japanese poetic forms for over fifty years. Her book An Unknown Road won third place in the 2009 HSA Merit Book Awards. It and her other books—Travel Souveniers, The Distance I’ve Come, and Ancient History—are available on Cyberwit and Amazon. http://www.adelaide-whitepetals.blogspot.com.