Poems in Society & Justice

The time clock coughs its punched-card truth at six,
and Rosa trades her coat for apron strings.
Her hands know grease before her mouth knows words,
and the fryer hums a hymn the morning brings.

Across the avenue, the courthouse steps
collect the same cold copper from the light.
A woman climbs them holding papers, straight
as rebar, though her knuckles hold on white.

The bus exhales. The platform fills with breath
of workers, wool and coffee, salt and rain.
Somebody's child recites the alphabet
against the window, fogging it again.

The foreman counts the crates. The judge counts days.
The landlord counts the rent. We count the hours.
But down on Kedzie, in the laundromat,
the dryers turn like slow and patient flowers.

And Rosa, wringing water from a rag,
looks up and sees the woman on the stairs,
and neither waves, and both of them keep working,
and something in the ledger shifts and squares.