Culture & Media
Factory Girl – A Letter

Dear Brother, In my job I use a tiny torch it opens and closes as I stitch metal with a syringe of light bright as a drop of sun. I try not to look but two white spots burn at the back of my eyes.
In one I see the other jobs I’ve had – cleaning up inn rooms -- someone else’s stain. In the other: years nearly starving on the farm never enough, no wheels, no way to town.
Between these two spots the men who wanted something and me just trying to make it work.
Possession
implies something remains, but want is all it is.
Dear Brother, in little squeezes of light that whisper and cut are months and years my history turned white in this brazier that captures and holds, this chamber where everything hardens and glows.
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Source: The Dos Passos Review, Spring 2010.
Mary Fitzpatrick is a fourth-generation Angeleno and a communications manager. Her poems have been featured in Atlanta Review, North American Review, Mississippi Review, ASKEW, The Georgetown Review and online by Writers at Work.
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