THAINA JOYCE
Alternating Current
You should be in secretary school. This profession is too masculine to pursue.
There’s no place for women manning heavy tools in the electrical department.
It is sad to see you trying. My advice: quit before you learn regret.
Your words tasted as stale as the smell in the backroom
where you sat behind a man-made metal desk, recruiting
generational misogyny. Above your head, a wall clock ticking
backward for every second of mine you wasted. A loud silence for every piece
of unwanted advice spewing out of your patriarchal
mouth. The early two thousands screamed through
your pearl eyeshadow matching the color of your Scarpin
shoes, your comments regressing time like it hasn’t evolved
a year past mid-century. Your fingers interlocked
on top of my resume like it was a confidential file too feminist
for your eyes, food for paper shredders. I noticed the flickering
bulbs baring the dead bugs inside the flush mount, and I realized
that was the only lousy connection I was equipped to fix in that room.
The gloominess of your workplace could have used more lighting
and maybe with the right illumination, you would’ve seen that a woman’s place
is wherever she chooses to be.
This interview is just a formality,
I’m hiring the boy who came before you.
You denied me an opportunity but you employed
my insecurities and self-doubt to work against my abilities.
Since then, every time I trace the wires to my ambitions,
I find clarity. Every time I feel the power to be who I am,
I sign my resignation letter to you.
Previously published by Amplify
Some Kind of Blues
When the rain falls
steadily, I think of the passion
you poured from your soul
straight into music. The way
you’d close your eyes to sing
that long note, channeling
the energy of a river if only
it could sing, too.
You brought
your guitar case full of dreams
to New York City. You gave all
you had for that Empire State
view but all you could see was the dirty
alleyway from your apartment window.
You wished
your piano fingers would hit the right keys
to unlock a record deal, see your name
shining at the marquee of the House of Blues,
with a crowd lining up outside the venue.
A cold night
in January cut your plans
short. You sang yourself to sleep and this time
your eyes never opened to see another break
of dawn. You were gone before your thirty-first
birthday, and now you rest
on the weightlessness of a cumulus cloud.
You became
the vibrant rainbow choir over the Hudson River,
bridging Some Kind of Blues to the music
that’ll never die. You are one with nature
a seed eternally grounded in the organic
soils of New Jersey. Your soul
breathes through the pentatonic scales,
every time we press play.
Thaina Joyce (she/her) is a Brazilian-American poet and educator based in Maryland. Her poetry has been featured at Sledgehammer Lit, Olney Magazine, and elsewhere. She has poems forthcoming at Black Cat Magazine, New Contrast Magazine, and The Bitchin’ Kitsch’s All My Relations. She hopes her work will empower, connect the human experience, and evoke new perspectives. Find her on IG:@thainawrites Twitter:@teedistrict