I am the only woman.
I don’t want to appear weak.
So I learn to wear their armor,
the armor they wear that says
I am tough, I can take anything,
I don’t need a union, or it’s safety
rules. The dirtier I get the better.
The attitude that work is an athletic
event, not an occupation which
you will work at for 25 years,
where you have to pace yourself
if you don’t want to be crippled up
and deaf by the end—if you want
to have an old age. I take the beer
they pass around and drink it down
like the best of them. I throw
my whole body into the 50 pound
sack like it is a bull I have to tame.
I must hide my breasts behind
loose coveralls and find steel toe
boots that fit my small feet
and not wince when the slab
of metal over my toes gets cold
as ice in winter. I swagger up
the gangway and loudly curse
the hardhat they make you wear,
and I toss it off when I get
into the hold because that steel
the winch driver is hoisting over
my head? will crush me with
or without protective headgear.
I laugh like they do. Why sweat
the small stuff, the hooks, the shackles,
the turnbuckles that the stiff plastic
might actually block? Who needs it?
Surely not me. And this is how
I spend my days, this way, the way
that says I don’t care. But it’s hard
to shed the armor when I get home.
It knots up my back. It clenches
my muscles and lays heavy on me
when I want to sleep. I take a hot
shower. I rub tiger balm on my sore
muscles. I spread lotion over my skin.
I scrape the dirt from my torn
fingernails and tell that vulnerable
animal that I was before I got this job,
that is still there underneath it all,
that it’s okay to come out now.
