I work like most people.
Unlike most people I like my job.
I move around like a shadow lost in space.
Somewhere between the present and past, where Dr. King marched, Kennedy was killed, and Malcolm was shot by his own.
Where a Black president made people believe the devils den could be changed.
Where, world leaders are assassinated, because tyrants call them tyrants.
I love my job.
The breakneck pace the slowness of sands drifting from the Sahara.
Mountains of paperwork flatten into one sheet.
The meet and greets, wine tasting, time wasting, preparing for something.
What?
It’s not conclusive, concrete, or obvious.
But not unknown either.
The fever pitch of perpetual motions, ticks, but no tocks.
Two hour hands on a minute clock, just watch, just watch.
2
My father was in transition as was most.
Work is no struggle, but a way to see struggles.
Constant changes literally change the texture.
To where it becomes temporally sacrificed for something behind the glass.
Sacrificed for me, it is I who’s behind the glass.
Sun glaring through the car window making October days feel like June
in transition.
3
What do you do for a living? Someone asks, and I answer I live for a living.
Live in a place where work is no longer busted knuckles and missing fingers.
Relaxation no longer means vacation, but busted heads and gunshot wounds.
The heart doesn’t reside in the same place as the home.
Faces of stone greet me daily.
False handshakes are temporary.
People wearing veils like the new Taliban with faces showing.
I have to ask which face you are wearing today.
I live in a place where ecstatic and ecstasy is not synonymous.
Where ecstasy is an altered perception of a world for which was never asked.
Where ecstatic means someone died, and maybe there’s some inheritance.