Sherry's Prayer

I am 46 years of age and no education.
Evenings I sit at the kitchen table
studying fractions with my oldest grandbaby.
Mrs. Wilkins at the college thinks I'll pass
my GED first try, but then what, I ask her?
I know I made the choice to start at the mill
and end at the mill but I guess you don't think
what if when everything is going good.
There was a time I thought I'd go to college,

wanted to be a nurse, can you believe it?
Mrs. Wilkins says I still could but I don't know
if it's in me anymore. I won't ever forget that day
the plant manager called us into the break room
and told us it was over, we were "let go," just like
we were cattle turned out to pasture. Thirty years
I have operated a machine. I growed up in that mill.
My family is in that mill and all I care about even if
I should have knowed better. Can't eat regrets,

I tell Maxie. He gives me them big moon eyes a his,
slaps me on the fanny like he could make everything
all right with a little lovin.' Can't eat lovin' neither,
I tell Maxie. I never had trouble sleeping but these
days I lay awake half the night listening to Maxie
snore, wondering what will become of us. I have
learned to make one chicken last a week. You'd be
surprised what you can save at the grocery.
I put in for jobs whenever I hear of openings.

My check comes like clockwork every Tuesday.
I've still got three months coming, more if I stay
in school. Still we are better than some.
Maxie says we will make it to the other side.
I pray every day one of us doesn't get sick
and that we will not lose the house we have worked
so hard to have. God made the promise
of the rainbow, and that is what I cling to right now,
that God will not leave us with nothing.

from Piece Work
(Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2007) © 2007.
First published in Sherry's Prayer: NC Textiles 1967-2004
as part of NC Crossroads
(NC Humanities Council), Dec. 2004