Linthead
This article originally appeared in Southern Exposure Vol. 11 No. 1, "'We'll Never Quit:' Yellow Creek Concerned Citizens fight for clean water." Find more from that issue here.
a gold watch,
the Twenty-five Year Club,
the Provident Fund,
were all company ways
of naming the nothing
she died with
at seventy-six,
alone in the last light
of the ward.
"Leola, don't be a linthead
for the rest of your life,"
her mama said,
the night shift was hers
for forty-nine years.
for the last ten years,
or maybe twenty,
she got off at six
and went by her old mother's house
to read her the Bible,
to fry her some bacon.
"Leola," said Mama,
"the kingdom of heaven is at hand."
her gold watch
shone like a chariot;
lint was an angel on her hair.
"linthead" is the milltown way
of saying
that heaven may help you eventually,
but now you are on your own,
carding, drawing,
spinning, and weaving
this low-grade, short-staple light
alone.