labor

Every morning at 6am
as my feet slip snug into my steel-toed boots

my ankles shout which sort of day it will be

On a good one I am resigned
to my hands and feet and back
muscles will ache
bones may bend
as the sun beats and beats and beats into our brains--

Worse are the days that drag.
On those I consider adopting religion simply to pray for rain

or perhaps and accident.
A minor one.

A broken wrist so they can't
make me hammer make me
pull make me
lift anymore.

One day it comes.

as I heave over the ladder's crown
something shifts
anditjolts anditslips andifall--
limbs a tangle in the rungs and the
breathless feeling of flight, impossible to discern from the
breathless feeling of falling

and I, my sack of flesh and sticks, hit.

Stand slowly, unharmed
though blood churns beneath the skin and colors much of me
purple

back to it, now

and out we march
to the seeping of sweat
and rank slap of setting tar.