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.