Ohio Fields
Charlotta could not have imagined,
opening her hands to send her sons
across the pitching ocean, each bearing
her lasts gifts—sun-bleached linen shirts
straight from her needle, cheeses,
pickled herring—seeking their fortunes
as the stories always go—surely Charlotta
never dreamt the richness of these fields,
the iron ore, the river highways,
grasslands where her grandchildren
would sprout tall like corn: striding half-Swedes
who knew the soil and worked it till
they themselves were planted deep,
America’s daughters and sons at last
laid down where August fireflies,
those swarming constellations, still draw
our creaking ships homeward, laden,
seeking our fortunes, deep in these Ohio fields.
Singer Slant-o-Matic 403A
and isn’t that name just the epitome
of nineteen fifty-eight, age of tomato aspics
and tuna casseroles, Sputnik launching
us into the glorious future, and here
it all distills into domestic magic
wielded by the lady of the house,
effervescent with mechanical promise:
a bounty of labour-savers, automators,
chrome-plated fairy godmothers
offering a life of ease. Oh, this machine!
its motor and gears, the scent of oil
and hot steel, the snick and whirr
of its moving parts—the finest semi-
automatic sewing machine ever built!—
all eighteen pounds of it carried up
from the basement cradled to my chest
the way my grandmother carried my father,
born two days after Christmas that year,
before setting him down to thread the needle,
check the bobbin, sew her way forward
and forward into time; she’s still sewing now.
Christine Pennylegion has lived in and around Toronto, Ottawa, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Windsor. She holds a BA(Hons) in English from the University of Toronto, and an MAR from Trinity School for Ministry. Her poems have been published by Dunes Review, Humana Obscura, Understorey Magazine, and others. Read more at christinepennylegion.com.