Are My Hands Clean? Anne Feeney
I wear garments touched by hands from all over the world
The journey begins in Central America
In the cotton fields of El Salvador in a province soaked in blood
Pesticide-sprayed workers toil in a broiling sun
Pulling cotton for $2 a day
Then we move on up to another rung, Cargill
Top 40 trailing conglomerate takes the cotton through the Panama Canal
Out the Eastern Seaboard coming to the U.S. of A.
For the first time
In South Carolina at the Burlington Mills it joins a shipment of polyester filament
Courtesy of the New Jersey petrochemical mills of DuPont
DuPont strands of filament begin in a South American country
Of Venezuela
Where oil riggers bring up oil from the Earth for $6 a day
Then Exxon
Largest oil company in the world upgrades the product in the country of Trinidad
And Tibego
Then back into the Caribbean and Atlantic seas to the factories of DuPont on the
Way to the Burlington mills
In South Carolina beneath the cotton from the blood-soaked fields of El Salvador
In South Carolina Burlington factories hum with the Business of weaving oil and cotton
Into miles and miles of fabric ordered by Sears
Who takes this bounty back into the caribbean sea
Headed for Haiti this time
May she one day soon be free
May she one day soon be free
Far from the port-au-prince palace, third world women toil
Who in peace work to Sears' specifications
For $3 a day
For $3 a day
My sisters make my blouse
It leaves the third world for the last time
And it comes back into the sea to be sealed and plastered for me
This third world sister
This third world sister
And I go to the Sears department store where i buy my blouse on sale for 20% discount
Tell me, are my hands clean?