In memory of the workers who died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire, New York City, March 25, 1911.
Each one wore a tag
with her name printed on it.
Each one wore a thin cloth
smock and a braided kerchief
caught at the nape
in a peasant knot.
Each invisible curl
was tucked like a dowry
into the triangle
of folded scarf
against the cotton wind
that whipped from the looms
and drove the soft gray lint
into each choked breath.
Beneath each smock
was a crisp blouse,
the prim cardboard tag
pinned to the fake collar lace
peeking over the edge
of cross-stitch trim.
Each tag bore a name
in neat Roman letters.
Each one clocked in and out
her fourteen hour day
except once. The crisp tags
burned silently.
The paper curled and the script
on gilded wisps of vapor
unfurled into the bolted room
where the iron clock had stopped
with a rumbling tock
on the quarter-hour
as if time itself
had dropped a stitch.
Flames threaded the looms
and screams curled like paper
amidst the swift machinery,
the bold new world
of each one's claim
lost so irretrievably
in that cradled
breach in time
when symbols crumbled
into ash
and nameless cries
filled a room of smoke.
Nancy Lederman is a lawyer and administrative law judge. She lives part time in Springs.