Part 1: The Laundromat

Lady Jane tumble-dries
Her ragged bluejeans
In the Laundromat
Just up from the merging point
Of Main and Pike
Hoping her faded denim
Won't shrink much more ---
Maybe just a tad,
Fit tighter to her ass
Which is back down to size
Less than a year after
Her first born emerged
And not six months since
Her husband left for Texas
'Cause he damned well couldn't
Feed her and that baby
On that part-time government job
That was the closest thing to steady work
He'd had since he left high school
Three years ago.

Lady Jane thinks about him
Long enough to wonder
If he's rich or starved
And wonders if Legal Aid
'll ever take care of the divorce
She can't hire a lawyer to handle
And if a man 'll ever take
Some high school dropout girl
That don't know how to cook
And comes complete with
Some other sucker's baby.

She wonders if her mom
'll watch the kid for her
While she goes to ask about
A lawyer
Again
Or if she'll have to
Trundle it along.

Lady Jane pats her tummy
--- Thin and tight again;
At least she's good for something,
That, if nothing more.

 Part 2: Dreaming

From the summer morning-sun window
Overlooking Joe's Used Cars
She hears the clatter of the dealers:
Greasy Joe looking over
The dented, rusty remnants
Of someone's three-quarter ton
Four-wheel-drive dream.

Lady Jane watches the woman,
Black-haired out-of-season hippie
Passing thirty in her faded jeans,
Resting her rump on that green
Late model Rabbit
(Like Joe'd never see)
Waiting on the guy
Who's exchanging keys for greenbacks
Lady Jane stares at the car lot,
At the "seventy-one, needs transfer case"
That's either turning farm truck
Or due to answer some
Four-wheeler's low budget prayer.
Her frog-prince may appear
To offer Joe McConnell
The four ninety-five
To make his fifteen passed on
Twenty dollar bills
A pleasant memory.

When he comes
--- She knows he wills ---
Lady Jane fears only
The dozen and one reasons
That will keep that perfect stranger
From beaming her "hello."

Part 3: Lady Jane the Dancer

The morning-sun August window
Looks just a touch drab
With the seventy-one pickup,
The big, old, two-tone Ford
With the four wheel drive
That stood up
Like it was on stilts
Gone from Joe's Used Cars,
Sold to some old farmer
Ready to drive it to death
On his hay fields

And Lady Jane chewing her nails
Hoping her first night dancing
Since she had the kid
Doesn't have her pregnant
Again.

Part 4: Legal Aid

Gina of the green Rabbit,
From the car lot,
Yeah,
Lady Jane remembers,

Was in the lawyers office
When Lady Jane walked in,
Rappin' to bespectacled Ms. Duncan,
Talkin' politics
And liberal raisin' hell
And things a girl
That ain't gone to college
Or D.C.
Or shackin' up with some
One-time organizer
For the U.M.W.A.
Ain't never goin' to know.

Ms. Duncan stares out the window,
Like she's watchin' the cross-street wall
While she tells Lady Jane
She'll get her her divorce
(She hopes)
And that Lady Jane 'll still
Have to stand in the welfare line
Each time
She has to get
One goddamned dime to live on.

Part 5: Flowers

Lady Jane wants flowers
In her window
Even though September
Puts her on the wrong side of the sun
For planting
And her one year old (happy birthday)
Walks now
And destroys everything
One year old hands can reach
And there's barely enough money
In the welfare check
For groceries
Let alone flowers.

 There are thirteen yellow leaves
On the top branch of the maple
Shading Joe's Used Cars.
The apartment needs flowers
In the wintertime
When trees are bare
And streets are gray
And Lady Jane can't afford a babysitter
To go dancing with the
Golden haired roofer
Who lives with his parents
Just across town
And is old enough
To want a family
--- Like hers?

Part 6: Divorce Court

Lady Jane in her one good dress
Feels much smaller
Than her five foot five
As the legal aid attorney
In bluejeans from the farm
Apologizes to the judge
Who would rather have her in court
that way
And get that goddamned welfare case
done
Than give her fifteen minutes to change.

"Too busy to care,"
Ms. Duncan sighs
As she ignores Lady Jane's scarlet face
And hasn't time herself
To reassure a woman
Who's having her soul burnt out
Under the microscope of
Fluorescent light society
--- Those concentrated beams
Of law and knowledge
Setting her off like kindling ---
Just because Craig had no work
And went to Texas without her.

11/83
 
 

(previously published in the San Fernando Poetry Journal, Vol.10, no. 1, 1988)
 

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