Sunday, 10 November 2013

The Reporter and the Woman Riding Home


by Nancy Snipper


The Globe reporter sweeps out of the office

Heaping his papers and brief and himself into the car.

Encased like a king or a criminal

In some snarling new auto

Or a mole-hole machine

Pocked with depressions

From on the job pressure and control

 Getting out of control

On the expressways and streets of Toronto -   

Avenues to stories

Printed publicly on paper

Or privately on chrome,

He rides home.


And then the women

Who keep company with sewing machines

 In Spadina Street factories

Form into bundles

As they hurdle themselves

Over the steep steps of the bus

 Laughing and chatting

And busily buzzing

About the day's events

Now past,

To their friends.


Fumbling through the pocket

Her hand touches the four comers

Of the tiny ticket

Pink,

Her mouth draws a smile

On her full foreign face

 Silent,

She stares at this piece of pass paper

Before parting with it,

As if she were grateful to it

And happy in her daily freedoms

Content to laugh and cry and chatter

About the day and what happened

And still wistful and wondering

About what will happen

Even though she always knows.   

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