the glass ball turrets sit in lines in the factory, by Alli Hartley-Kong

This girl in a glass house is putting finishing touches on the bombardier nose section of a B-17F navy bomber, Long Beach, Calif. She's one of many capable women workers in the Douglas Aircraft Company plant. Better known as the "Flying Fortress," the B-17F is a later model of the B-17 which distinguished itself in action in the South Pacific, over Germany and elsewhere. It is a long range, high altitude heavy bomber, with a crew of seven to nine men, and with armament sufficient to defend itself on daylight missions. Photo provide to US govt by S. Washburn, her grandson. photo: 1942. Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information/Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

the glass ball turrets sit in lines in the factory
 
and the woman in the red uniform with the soft makeup
welds pieces of metal to the glittering glass orbs and wishes
to burst out of her body fly to the ceiling watch the turrets
sitting calmly waiting like eggs for market in rows and rows and rows
 
her head emerges from the globe of glass the B-17
she is casting, she is doing her part in manicured nails and
diamond ring, doing her part for her kids and for her country
and the man who will cocoon in the naked belly of the B-17
because she doesn’t want him to be alone because who does really
 
not even the navy men on the dock they don’t want to be alone
especially not the navy men who are waiting on the dock
for one last fuck before they line up in rows to die and die and die
 
she is going to the dock after the nightshift, after the nightshift
she is going to the daycare, to the nightcare and after the nightcare
she is going to the dock the boys there are warm and alive
and they don’t insist that because there wasn’t a body to bury
the telegram was sent by mistake, they don’t ask when daddy’s coming home
 
she is rosie in red uniform rivets and all fingers nimbled on the flying fortress
the B-17 and sometimes when her flaps of skin catch in the rivet gun
they bleed and she likes it, she likes to have evidence of being alive
 
that’s why the woman presses her thumbprint to the glass on each B-17
and imprints herself on the desperate men on the dock so eager
wet and panting to show her they are alive too at least alive for now
and she peeks her head beyond the glass of the B-17 flying fortress
because she needs to emerge she can emerge not like her husband he’s not coming back
 
she knows that someone will die when the turret shatters
over germany and her fingerprint will unthread and shatter to pieces too
 
someone will die little pieces in germany
or maybe japan where scraps of men float to the surface
god there are so many places to die
 
shards of glass trickle from the sky
pieces of soldier are falling from the sky

Alli Hartley-Kong

Alli Hartley-Kong is a historian, museum educator, poet and playwright from northern New Jersey. Her poems have appeared in Stylus and The Human Touch Journal.