她把東西聚攏，募集保釋金，

        讓房東修補最大的漏洞。

        在星期日聯歡會上，她給每一杯飲料

        加入烈酒，而且向你講她的一半知識

        傾訴不停。她攻擊城市的廢墟

        就像一輛坦克；而她認為

        自己是把粗齒鋸

        割斷木頭的節瘤。她的語句

        如一根根粗松木柄

        而她的一雙大手像濃煙瀰漫空中，

        她是貧民窟一間小屋，用泥巴堵塞了裂縫，

        坐在門前的石階上數耗子

        養育十五個孩子，

        一半由她親生。這街道沒了她

        會失火燒成焦土；

        最近她自己將擊打出火花。

        她由油脂

        和金屬製成，頭顱堅硬

        使她周圍的男人顯得脆弱。

        這普通的婦女平常得如同－根鐵釘。

She holds things together, collects bail,
makes the landlord patch the largest holes.
At the Sunday social she would spike
every drink, and offer you half of what she
knows,
which is plenty. She pokes at the ruins of the
city
like an armored tank; but she thinks
of herself as a ripsaw cutting through
knots in wood. Her sentences come out
like thick pine shanks
and her big hands fill the air like smoke.
She's a mud-chinked cabin in the slums,
sitting on the doorstep counting
rats and raising 15 children,
half of them her own. The neighborhood
would burn itself out without her:
one of these days she'll strike the spark herself.
She's made of grease
and metal, with a hard head
that makes the men around her seem frail.
The common woman is as common as a nail.