Casualty Days
Linda LeGarde Grover
War Poetry Contest 2006 (view all the winners)
Honorable Mention
Back here in the world as summer passed
through bright and gritty dog days, anchored girls
whose time was not their own, having been bought
and paid for by Northwestern Bell
linked and braided coiled color snakes
red white grey white across the continent,
Sharon to Missoula, Pam to New York
their sad and tender fingers glittering
in the absence of their men, who slept, it seemed
to the girls of the dark third shift, it almost seemed
they slept in jungles near the China Sea.
I passed them, on the sidewalk outside Bell,
some college kids home on their summer break,
girls in hippie dress and peasant chic
boys in blue chambray work shirts and jeans
too old for innocence, sitting cross-legged
(Indian-style, they thought) on the sidewalk
singing and chanting "Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh!
NLF is going to win!" A white girl,
costumed ersatz Indian princess
who wore a beaded headband from Japan
looked right through me, a Native working girl
in a shirtwaist dress, carrying a vinyl purse.
Upstairs, we plaited spiderwebs of calls.
"Solidarity forever; our union makes us free"
floated up on humid summer hair
to our window, and over the switchboard
weighting the hands and hearts of anchored girls,
unseen sisters of the working class.
And sleepless girls we sang through the night,
songs I remember as I remember our fright
Operator.
Your number please?
Please deposit ten cents more.
Operator.
Your number please?
I'm sorry, ma'am, your time is up.
Remember, Bev, how very young we were?
I remember, and remember how he'd kissed your pretty face.
I remember your blue eyes and waiting face.
And Bev, remember those "Casual Wear Days"
when operators who met their quotas
were rewarded with pot luck lunches,
and freed from polyester working clothes
for a day of being someone not ourselves?
In jeans, we almost looked like college girls.
That summer casual wear day was so hot
a girl fainted at the keyboard; you were cold,
though, fragile and sweatered. You talked
recipes with the older operators,
kind ladies, their spreading flesh fading and
Tussy-scented within their casual wear,
picnic "wash" dresses soft with wear and age.
Polite and frightened we spooned and swallowed
uneasy noodle salads, their intended comforts
our reward for being such good and grownup girls.
Remembering themselves in other wars,
they knew; they knew how young we really were.
Summer passed; days shortened and grew cold:
migratory birds and college kids
soared and disappeared into the sky.
Here in the world, we hurried to work
in thin-soled flats light on the frosty sidewalk
to punch in and anchor to the switchboard,
bound and faceless girls weaving America
red white grey white across the continent,
Duluth to Detroit, to the fire department,
to the Busy Bee Market. Business. Births. Deaths.
Bev, that January casual wear day
you maintained, pale and thin in winter white.
Below the bowl you balanced on your hand
your diamond ring, loose, spun and caught the light.
That day, white marble balanced on an egg
as flatly jazzed bridal lasagna sweat
uneasy beads through wedding gift Pyrex,
gold roosters flaunting avocado plumes
while shivering girls tiptoed through their bloom.
Pammy's cave rat trapped deep in the jungle,
and Sharon's sniper in that twelve-foot boat,
in sleep, those absent boys, what did they dream
while their feet softened and yellowed, damp
in heavy laced boots, near the South China Sea?
And your own soldier, Bev, lost there in the fog
beyond the South China Sea, woke dreaming of you.
Remember, Bev, how very young we were?
I remember, and remember how he'd kissed your pretty face.
