Stella.
year. 1944
city. Kraków
Loose Paper found in a drawer belonging to Stella X, age 24
Dirty Boss
Coal dust never comes off
It seeps into your skin and your lungs
It embeds itself into the fibers of your shirt
Nesting until its home belongs to you.
I like being dirty
A statement seldom heard from women
I make room for the coal
A safe place for it to burrow.
Everyone else scrubs themself raw
Like they’re covered in bugs
Itching to get them off.
But when I’m dirty
They can’t see me.
My left hand is trivial
No rings allowed in the mines
Instead I am their boss
A cunning threat to their manhood
The shock and disgust in their eyes
Never fails to amuse me.
I thank the coal
It keeps me dirty
A muted glaze of disguise
That hides my femininity
I am one in a sea of uniforms
Now I am taken seriously.
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year. 1971
city. Warsaw
Unfinished letter from Stella X, age 51
Pen Pals
Once a month, I taste the bitter film
Of the envelope I seal
Before it's shipped across the world
To a faceless city.
I write stories of the mines and of frustrated men
Of bottles of vodka with bison grass
Hidden in our bed frames and marked with an X.
When the Soviets left
I was promptly sent home
Where my unwed status
Marred my left hand like a gaping flesh wound.
My friends seem peculiar
They have little to say
Those who move to America
Are not expected to complain.
So I backed down and married
A man I hardly know
Breadwinning was no longer a woman’s burden
A dream I slowly let go.
I keep my letters in a box
Gifted to me in my past
A reminder of independence
And the women I lost.
We grant ourselves nostalgia
We reminisce the bitter mines
Through letters we slowly realize
We were free.