All right, so this is definitely a labor poem.
This is "A Girl Leaves the Croft."
And this is based on the history of Victorian working women,
19th century women who moved from crofts--
farms-- to working in factories in England.
Cottage work.
The spinner at the door, a halo of sun, a tidy room behind her.
Maids at the wheel sit blithe and happy.
Such chastity in the pre-electric,
or in the moldy flax under the finger,
causing Beauty's allergic reaction.
We're all framed in this whodunit.
A lover waits for hair to be thrown from a window at dusk.
A witch holds stolen braids, singing out
to the fool, which is us.
Or we hold other prostheses against our ears,
thinking to get ahead.
Or we are thrown into a bush, blinded by thorns,
and the woods our only friend.
What's more important, the wheel, or the distaff,
or finally, the prick?
Later, a girl leaves the croft and is
scalped by an unboxed machine.
What savages, these Englishmen.
Then the Mrs. sinks marriage in a pint.
"Go feed your own barn."
Thus, sociology begins.
To keep the conditions wretched, men
argue the loveliness of the Calico workers.
And there, theories of proper carriage-- how
it's manufactured-- are born.
Either an elegant, stunted growth, or the hot stove cure.
Either way, the lot ignorant, prejudiced, and sensual.
Which leads us to a kind of photography,
like a loose quaff and white stockings held at the thighs
by two unrepentant bows.
Who produced these pillars of the community?
This is art in the age of ribbon production.
She stands so still for the image.
A flash of pussy.
The Industrial Age.