Every small business is a miracle
willed into this nasty world
and every business owner a hero
made perfect for one moment then gone
the way of the yeoman farmer
a terrible figure
of immaculate virtue and cred.
A miracle is to receive this miracle risen
again from scheming, eternal fires:
don’t tell me that fire gives up on us
just smolders there and styles
beside the tzar’s sarcophagus.
In Russia
they have
permanently burning fire
pits in the
public squares
to remind its
citizens of the eternal struggle
though I
myself don’t believe in work
as a virtue. I don’t strip-mine the forest
or
choke the river with garbage.
I have the decency to study my privilege
with a preoccupying scrutiny
print it out every day
to hate it, which is hard work
believe me. All day all evening thinking
positions to stave off despair.
Thinking how cacophonous fire must
be as you die in it.
What is work, when all of us are
sad and done. If I can, should I not loaf
in my sunlit cube, reading Lives of the Tzars
commemorating my wife
whose indomitable will I served
and feared gladly.
“She gets it”
I would always think, as she pegged me.
She really gets it.
