Hobble Creek Review
| Pamela R. Anderson |
When the Whistle Blows
Sunshine ruptures the sooty air
as the shift-end whistle blows.
Shuffling out in their steel-toed
boots, workers look like blank-stamped dies.
They sugar up to the bar slanted elbows
on its polished top. Water rings
smudge the wood as the tumblers
rise and fall empty and fill.
A blue light pours ice
on those raw faces. The mirror
throws back vertical
bottles from its smoky skin.
Dad’s dull lunch bucket
squats at his feet
on the filthy linoleum Jack
painted in Mom’s Reno Red nail polish.
Down the road, a cop yawns and watches
them saunter in stagger out. Sometimes
he flips on his lights and hauls one in,
just to break the boredom of the beat.
Summer Heat
My mother stabbed a bristle of bobby pins
into the braid coiled around her head.
When the whistle blew, dad dragged
home from the mill.
Stiff and sweaty, the hair twined
out from his unbuttoned workshirt,
dark stains climbing his back.
August dog days ignited
my mother’sanger: money that never
paid the bills; kids who ate too much.
Heat lifted choked
the sky in colored blasts.
Her voice slammed like a hammer
against his mind.
That summer I turned thirteen
learned to hold my tongue
and wait for the blow.
Silence our best weapon shoved
my mother into madness.
Sunshine ruptures the sooty air
as the shift-end whistle blows.
Shuffling out in their steel-toed
boots, workers look like blank-stamped dies.
They sugar up to the bar slanted elbows
on its polished top. Water rings
smudge the wood as the tumblers
rise and fall empty and fill.
A blue light pours ice
on those raw faces. The mirror
throws back vertical
bottles from its smoky skin.
Dad’s dull lunch bucket
squats at his feet
on the filthy linoleum Jack
painted in Mom’s Reno Red nail polish.
Down the road, a cop yawns and watches
them saunter in stagger out. Sometimes
he flips on his lights and hauls one in,
just to break the boredom of the beat.
Summer Heat
My mother stabbed a bristle of bobby pins
into the braid coiled around her head.
When the whistle blew, dad dragged
home from the mill.
Stiff and sweaty, the hair twined
out from his unbuttoned workshirt,
dark stains climbing his back.
August dog days ignited
my mother’sanger: money that never
paid the bills; kids who ate too much.
Heat lifted choked
the sky in colored blasts.
Her voice slammed like a hammer
against his mind.
That summer I turned thirteen
learned to hold my tongue
and wait for the blow.
Silence our best weapon shoved
my mother into madness.
Pamela R. Anderson is Director of Philanthropic Giving at Kent State
University ’s public radio station, WKSU-FM. Her poetry has appeared in
Epitome, Penguin Review, YACK, and The Hiram College Newsletter. Pamela
is currently an MFA candidate at the Northeast Ohio Consortium Program
(NEOMFA).
University ’s public radio station, WKSU-FM. Her poetry has appeared in
Epitome, Penguin Review, YACK, and The Hiram College Newsletter. Pamela
is currently an MFA candidate at the Northeast Ohio Consortium Program
(NEOMFA).
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