Keith
Althaus
that kids turn down
as dirty, underpaid,
and too embarrassing
to be seen picking up
litter and cleaning out
trash barrels at the edge
of the parking lot.
So they lean against their cars
making plans, how to get beer
and girls, and I walk the perimeter
with two garbage bags,
one for cans, the other —
everything else, paper,
broken glass, fast
food wrappers from miles away,
diapers, the contents
of the quickly cleared interiors
of cars, the ashtrays emptied
as an afterthought.
I too am making plans,
with all the skill of one
who's been planning for years
and seen those plans
continually changed.
While this heat tests its power
to invent, the mind
wishes for the end
of all illusions,
that even these phony tears
of sweat
rolling in the eyes
meant something more
than just the combination
of sun and exertion.
Seen from above,
I might appear as a bee
with its pollen sacs
moving from flower to flower,
but down here it's
smelly and shadeless
in the glare of the parking lot,
where at forty, I avert my eyes
from the kids, laughing
and leaning on their cars.
"At Forty Doing the Work" is from Rival
Heavens by Keith Althaus (Provincetown Arts Press).
Used with the permission of the author.
