[ CC ] Industrious Annalise

    
Let them talk about making this nation    
great again as if it was some truck tire    
worn down to its radial under armor    
ready for retread in the tire department    
next building over from where we worked.    
   
The harness of solidarity we erected    
remains buckled. We were the welding
that held everything together by sweat,  
blood, and tears. We were America    
strong.    
   
And still are, even after labor pains
of being strong-armed during contractual    
obligations around every corner    
---becoming well heeled regarding miles    
of concrete and iron catwalks hiked,    
but hardly as far as insurance benefits    
and pursed billfolds where it counted,    
   
And there were no leaves of absence    
when it came to leaves of abstinence    
as one unplanned on getting pregnant;    
you could always count on women    
getting shafted upon shafted.    
   
Let me tell you how it was --- enough    
anguish was channeled into the rubber    
plant's production line floor that glass    
ceilings cracked with every impact    
of our feet being put down hard.    
   
Not without backbiting resistance,    
mind you. Butch. Dyke. Lesbo. Name it.    
They labeled us -- designated unfit    
to work along side for the same pay    
and definitely for dating by such great    
American specimens of men    
who demonstrated all the Olympian    
capacity of beer kegs in form,    
function, and usefulness.    
   
We endured the unlubricated jeers    
nonstop, sometimes from behind,    
but mostly right up in our faces    
---I guess being spare-ribbed equals,    
we were meant to take the thrusts    
of their fear driven anger like men,    
if not the queers they secretly feared    
would eventually topple Heterotopia.    
   
Yet they sure loved their girl-on-girl porn    
if the girls on the girls in the girlie mags    
were airbrushed into flawless perfection,    
looking glorious in frilly lingeries ...    
   
And I guess I don't blame them;    
overalls do little to accentuate figures    
without God's plumping ass'istance    
and grease giving complexions fits.    
   
On my days off, I was about as sexy    
as Gloria Steinem in a gunny sack dress    
---more hip deep into Gloria Jeans---    
my lunch pail thermos was emptied    
with a cigerette or two by morning's    
fifteen minute break.    
   
Not vain about my appearance,    
letting low self esteem and complex    
be cause to quit punching the clock,    
instead I chose to punch a few assholes    
during my time at Firestone.    
   
As for Annalise ...    
   
Damn. How badly I wanted to hit that    
broad when she was hired on in 1975.    
Boy, she really rubbed me the wrong way.    
Bossy --- always micro-managing. Anal  
was an understatement.    
   
So much so, the gals called her Anal-lise    
her first month on the floor. Ha! I can laugh    
about it now, but refused to back then    
---that would have made me no better    
than the men with their insults.    
   
Anna and I finally entered the union    
officially having swapped rings at City Hall    
seven years ago. I guess you could say,    
shortly after we were acquainted,      
she grew on me in girl-on-girl fashion;    
never was I into women until having laid    
eyes on her for the first time.    
   
She died last March from complications    
due to the Covid-19. I always told her    
to give up smoking --- which we both did,    
but a few years too late, I guess;    
her lungs were a mess by then    
and these last couple of years on oxygen    
were quite a drag on her spirit.    
   
Underneath the rigid aluminum clipboard,    
Anna was always my fresh of breath air    
in that insufferable nine-to-five armpit.    
   
And now she's gone, just like the America    
that was so supposedly so fucking great    
until black men and women started    
running for President.