TAZRIN FASHIONS, LTD.

She believed she was about thirty
years old when she ran, bolted the door
behind her so her mother could not follow,
leaving her daughter crying;
Her only companion a certainty that something
had to be done. She'd heard rumours
of Dhaka, how women clawed their way 
up, were paid an ungodly wage, 
10000 taka, 90 American dollars,
and she had Riva, the math whiz, 
beginning to dream of school, 
where poems floated above heads, 
whispered, unwritten. Unable to be.

And then she was waking in 
a shed the size of a shipping crate,
her days and half nights sewing invisible 
seams into jeans, women's bright shirts.
Twelve hours a day and one year later,
she sent for her.
Riva's school uniform, books
paid for and waiting. 
Next came the delicate thread
of smoke, released from some
preternatural bobbin, and the stairwell
(filled with stored, finished clothing)
transformed itself into a flue, 
spinning out flames, unstraightening the walls. 
Her only chance to see Riva again 
was to pull her legs out
from the avalanche of bodies near 
the locked door to prevent pilfering
and leap out of an industrialist's contract,
four stories into a union of air
where others, already launched,
trailed their burning skirts, the ends of burning hair,
arms fluttering like flaming wings.
The cobbles catch and shatter
thoroughly her legs, and around her, 
(except one, hung almost neatly over a cable),
careless piles of flung laundry,
with arms and hands, refuse to stir.

On another planet someone 
fingers the shirt she'd hunched over 
last month, a size 34, inspects the seams,
notes the cost, swipes a card,
heads toward Starbucks.
Her schooling ensued 
from constitutional right,
some dusty amendment.
She has never read a book 
until its spine broke.