Supply and Demand

As a dishwasher
in a restaurant
I lasted only three hours.
It was a dubious role at best.
The dirty dishes kept coming
faster than I could produce clean ones.
But I could play the piano
for hours and hours,
snake across the floor
on my belly
all afternoon and into the night.
As Hercules
I lifted Antaeus from the earth,
robbing him of his strength.
Always happy,
I could walk around the block
on my hands.
In a fanciful costume,
I played the joker.
With a thirty-pound sack of rice
on my head, all day
I danced
on a stone balustrade
without falling off.
From sunup to sundown,
week after week,
I was a whole amusement park
unto myself.
I was on top of contingencies.
I defended victims of foolishness
and porous people.
I campaigned for weeks
against the greedy.
I deconstructed ancestral suffering.
I gave comfort to the feeble
and the needy.
I made marionettes dance for kids.
I played marbles with the best
and the worst.

But as a dishwasher
I lasted only three hours.