IRONING, IRONING (For Tillie Olsen)
Like a drunken fool I pick out the wrinkles linen and shirt,
the foam-green dress, the black, long sleeve T
and I drink ice cold glasses of lemon tea
as the temperature lingers at 90 plus degrees.
When I ironed as a 12-year old, I listened
to the radio. Imogene Coco and Sid Caesar battled
in their boisterous humor, the Lone Ranger
and his faithful companion, Tonto,
rode in clouds of dust,
but I liked his real name better,
Jay Silverheels. “The Inner Sanctum,”
“The Whistler,” and Jack Benny
with his arms akimbo,
and his sidekick Rochester.
I can see Tallulah Bankhead,
her heavily mascaraed eyes.
I hear her deep-throated voice
and smell her cigarette breath.
These radio characters were good company
as I ironed and ironed my father’s pants,
my mother’s dresses, my sister’s blouses
and my own pajama tops and bottoms
that Ma Ma sewed just for me.
No, these were not PJ’s for sleeping.
I felt ashamed because I was a girl
and had to wear pants which were not in style.
I wanted to wear flower-print dresses
with crisp, peter-pan collars
like my sisters and girlfriends,
but couldn’t because my eczema
had a field day with ripe, red hives
blossoming onto my skin, conquering
the body that I thought I owned.
When I was young, I thought that ironing
was drudgery, only the work
that poor Chinese or black girls did,
not for pin money, but for money, period.
When I ironed at midnight, Bah Bah fried
his golden pork chops in a cast-iron pan
and drank his V.O. in our kitchen.
He already worked a long day and evening
at our Great China Restaurant.
And we became companions,
father and daughter, staples in the kitchen,
using our hands to cook and iron,
silent with our unexpressed dreams.
“Marriage, hmphh!” blurted Bah Bah one night
and I said nothing. I only ironed and ironed,
thinking the hissing of the steam iron
was noisy enough for both of us.
Now I practically dance as I iron
because I’ve had so much practice.
Retrieving from my woven Japanese basket
the postcard reproduction of a painting
called “Ironing” by Jacob Lawrence
who now resides with the world’s dead painters.
In the painting, three Black women, tall and angular,
in white cotton cloche hats and sleeveless white dresses,
hunker down with heavy black irons.
They had no steam irons, just their muscles
and grit finishing up some mistresses’
blouses, aprons and tablecloths.
They dig and lift, push and slide and lift again,
their thoughts submerged into the irons
as their fingers maneuver on the ironing boards
as expertly as ice skaters on a rink.
These ironers (this word has dignity)
ironed on hot nights, cold mornings, doing the work
their white employers paid them little to do.
Jacob Lawrence didn’t paint the ironers’ eyes,
their noses, their mouths. I don’t know
if they were smiling or gossiping, if they were worried
about the day’s meager wages, if there was
enough milk or cereal for their children.
Technology cannot give us digital ironing.
Who’d want it? You mean flicking a switch,
pointing the arrow at an icon
and your ironing’s done? Astronauts swallowing
pills for honey-baked ham and chocolate éclairs?
Ironing is honest work, ironing is what
Ma Ma’s brother-in-law from China did,
a handsome laundry man we addressed as Ah Chenk
with his own laundry
at the mouth of Stockton St. Tunnel
entering Chinatown. Here, Chinese men ironed
and pressed white linens, men’s dress shirts,
women’s dresses, even rich folks underwear.
I probably will never stop ironing
even though it’s smart to look wrinkled
these days. Savoring the rhythm, the honesty,
on this, the hottest night of the year,
I stand here, ironing, ironing.
Ironing, Ironing by Nellie Wong was first published in Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism, Volume 3, No. 1, 2002, Wesleyan University Press.
The poem is dedicated to Tillie Olsen. In 1983, Nellie traveled to China on the first U.S. Women Writers Tour to China sponsored by the U.S.-China Peoples Friendship Association with Tillie Olsen, Alice Walker, Paule Marshall, among others, the only Chinese American woman to be included.
Nellie read Ironing, Ironing on Saturday, November 19, 2022, accompanied by harpist Destiny Muhammad, in response to Women’s Liberation Talking Mask (1973) and “Mother’s Quilt (1982) by Faith Ringgold for The Last Hoisan Poets & Friends “American People: Celebrating Faith Ringgold” at the de Young Museum.
Nellie’s poem also references Ironers (1943), a work of art by Jacob Lawrence.
Nellie Wong at the Faith Ringgold Celebration writing workshop held at the de Young Museum with The Last Hoisan Poets on November 22, 2022. Photo by Gary Sexton.