Monument to an unknown woman worker

 

They are wearing the tools of everyday work:

typewriter slung around the waist; telephone

over the chest, receiver attached to one arm.

The shopping basket loops, unexpectedly,

through the taller one’s breasts. A baby’s bottle

tilts down from her clavicle as if to moisten a nipple.

Baby’s dummy in her ear: a convenient

place to store it. Between broad shoulders,

mimicking trapezoid muscles, a coat-hanger;

fish-slice and colander cleave to each buttock.

Fauna steps away laughing as if she’d just chatted

with these women, shared a joke, outside the Great

Northern Mall, one cold March, in Belfast.