Charlotte was well into her ninth decade,
with no plans for retirement, making,
slicing, and packing sandwiches
on the assembly line with the rest of us poor souls -- perpetually bored teenagers,
dropouts, and functioning addicts trying to survive.
Her face was a wonder of lines intersecting
with lines, of worry and laughter,
one long and detailed story leading
imperceptibly into another; her skin, thin
as parchment, polished and shining
beneath the gray industrial light,
especially when she turned to smile.
Her beloved husband Frank had long since left
this life, while their children, and their children, had
grown and moved away, one to the east
and one far out west, remembering, most years,
to call at Christmas and her birthday.
"What would I do sitting at home alone?,"
she would ask to no one in particular,
answering herself with an exaggerated shrug.
Decades earlier, she had worked
at the ammunition plant not far from here,
alongside my aunt Anna Mae, counting
and packing machine gun shells for the war
six days a week, her hands perpetually
smelling of metal and oil for years.
This work was easier, much easier by far.
"Here I can eat what I make," she once quipped,
"and no one gets hurt, or killed -- just fed."
