If you could see the face behind the phone each time you placed a call,
touch the aching fingers that set each part in place
If you could smell in the cotton the sweat from the long coop shop
and taste the dread regurgitated as the foreman passes over

you might decide to invite your slave in,
for cake and talk.
You might ask them is your husband better?
how are your eyes?
did your son find work?
You might offer answers too.
You might gaze in stupid silence out the kitchen window, you two, shrugging off the clock, ignoring all the calls