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They called me blue stockings
because I had thoughts and said them out loud.
Truth is, in a way I loved it:
the sweetness of keeping your eye on someone,
the regulars, the endless chats,
the woman from Irishtown who married a man
from Sandymount, ate alone
until her two boys would be chased out of the park.
Moping beside her they’d brighten
to ask: do ya tink we’re good!? And I always did.
Because they were and are. I wasn’t
always the best at remembering to watch the hatch,
or hoovering the booths,
but I let people guess my accent like it was a game.
One day I realised I spelled
‘forest’ wrong on the chalkboard dessert menu and
laughed so hard I cried.
I liked seeing the same faces day in and day out,
but one morning I flew home
after news that my grandmother was in trouble,
and by the time I returned
you could’ve fit two of me in the black jeans
I’d worn as a uniform,
could have told me I’d never amount to anything
and I’d have believed you, still
when I unzipped the suitcase I’d left behind,
I held the canvas apron
with ‘Heineken’ embroidered on the pocket,
ran my fingers over
the stitched lettering and thought of the money,
also the routine.
I put it to one side with the things to keep,
then moved it
to another pile of things to donate, before moving it
back again to keep.
But when I filled up the bin bag for the charity shop,
on impulse
I stuffed the apron, two pairs of black jeans, three black shirts
down deep,
and deleted the boss's number from my phone,
telling myself:
there’d be something else for me next,
there had to be.
Grace Wilentz’s collection The Limit of Light was published by Gallery Press in 2020.
because I had thoughts and said them out loud.
Truth is, in a way I loved it:
the sweetness of keeping your eye on someone,
the regulars, the endless chats,
the woman from Irishtown who married a man
from Sandymount, ate alone
until her two boys would be chased out of the park.
Moping beside her they’d brighten
to ask: do ya tink we’re good!? And I always did.
Because they were and are. I wasn’t
always the best at remembering to watch the hatch,
or hoovering the booths,
but I let people guess my accent like it was a game.
One day I realised I spelled
‘forest’ wrong on the chalkboard dessert menu and
laughed so hard I cried.
I liked seeing the same faces day in and day out,
but one morning I flew home
after news that my grandmother was in trouble,
and by the time I returned
you could’ve fit two of me in the black jeans
I’d worn as a uniform,
could have told me I’d never amount to anything
and I’d have believed you, still
when I unzipped the suitcase I’d left behind,
I held the canvas apron
with ‘Heineken’ embroidered on the pocket,
ran my fingers over
the stitched lettering and thought of the money,
also the routine.
I put it to one side with the things to keep,
then moved it
to another pile of things to donate, before moving it
back again to keep.
But when I filled up the bin bag for the charity shop,
on impulse
I stuffed the apron, two pairs of black jeans, three black shirts
down deep,
and deleted the boss's number from my phone,
telling myself:
there’d be something else for me next,
there had to be.
Grace Wilentz’s collection The Limit of Light was published by Gallery Press in 2020.
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