Summer Job

For all we knew, there was no such thing as wealth

management internships sponsored by a father’s

Harvard roommate, or else some Fifth Avenue gig

running iced coffee for fashionistas an hour’s ride away

from where we stood, the darkest thing for miles,

trash collection claws extending from our sleeves

like some late 80’s cyborg fantasy. We were bored

out of our brains, unlettered, sharp enough still

to know our place in the grander proletarian scheme:

a pair of scholarship kids paid to maintain campus

while our peers tried their hands at college physics,

American industry, psychedelics and road trips

to the mid-west with friends, all while Devin and I

stood in our standard-issue jumpsuits, adding another

coat of white paint to the cafeteria walls without irony.

There were no small iron gods in our pockets then;

no machines to thread us into the invisible world, and so

we passed entire mornings listening to the ceremonies

of birds we couldn’t name as we traversed the sides

of the high-way, each step perfecting our soon-to-be

flawless technique, dodging carrion, dividing paper waste

from condoms and bottles of Coors, just the way Jay taught

us our first day on-call. I spent most breaks in the rift

between observation and dreams, pulling music from the filthy

tales each older man on the maintenance crew cast like a cure

into the mind of the other. Folklore filling the desolate

lecture halls where we took lunch, laughing as we traded

one tradition for another. No future worth claiming apart

from that broken boiler in the next building, blackbirds

trapped in the gutter-way, getting pipes fixed before fall.