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The man and his dog
always outside
in the radio-described
bitter new england cold,
No grass blades no
green at all.
He makes
his jokes about
lezzies and tits
and when a girl
is around
he just screws up
puns and then
gets bitter at
polite laughter.
My job is intolerable
professional
water treader
racking up points
by selling
it
I know it kills
them
turns them into men
who leave dogs outside
in bitter weather,
another man
tells me 1999.99
is "Jew for two
thousand" and I
stare. He came back
I told him to shop
somewhere else
and he couldn't
remember why
we all forget
why we are
who we are
and what made us
betray any glimmer
of grass blades- no
green at all;
I am tired of the things
I must do, when really
they are all merely
holding the walls up
putting a roof up
over my head by
burying myself
in ways that throw
mud and rocks
into conversations
that navigate power
adjustments.
There's another man
a large man who works
in retail.
He is powerful (in
retail),
he has an income
of any five of us and I
am supposed to respect him
but respect is the last thing
I have for the men who hold
the reins over armies
of red shirts blue shirts
name tags and sick days
who can't ask a single
decent question in an entire
wasted retail life
he knows how to give orders
as if that is a talent
as if we are not all born
with demands for the world
some of us learn how
to investigate
others learn how
to assert.
A large man
a powerful man
in retail
and when I told
his assistant
the truth
everyone said
I was going to be
fired when he found
out.
I know that this
is not a surprise
to anyone
but the men who run
retail at the district wide
level
do not know how
to ask questions
about a single thing
and so they know
nothing, and there is
nothing I respect
about a mercedes and
a suit and control
over a million frustrated
small men who have given
up on grass blades;
who use the word "hope"
to talk about whether or not
a customer will do what
the boss wants them to do
The small men who
tear at each other
for being late to work
or when another calls in
sick and is not really sick
we should be applauding
our brothers who call in
sick and are not really sick
we should be applauding
whenever one of us
tears apart the system
but then I think
of how many of them
really admire
the mercedes
and not the grass
and I know
we all know this
but it is killing me
today, at a bar
with coworkers
surrounded by
a generation
who bought the myths
of retail and spending
who don't dream bigger
than who in the bar
they could lay
who look in thier hearts
and come out
with fart jokes
and comments
about lezzies
and tits
we are all
professionals
treading water
rising so slowly
we do not know
what is in our lungs
until we have been killed.
-e.
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