Carolyn worked the register and loved Billy Joel. She sang "Piano Man" while she rolled the pizza dough and swore that she'd never eat pizza again. She was the disciplined one who loaned us money when we went broke between our meager paydays. She never charged us interest. John always wore jean shorts even when he delivered pizzas in December. He sang well enough to record vocal backgrounds for local radio and TV ads but said that he made more money slinging double pepperoni pies with extra sauce and cheese. Hey, boss man, can I get a raise? Can I get a raise, please? At the sandwich shop, Black Mike and White Mike split the cost of buying cigarettes and took smoking breaks together. White Mike cried when we heard that Black Mike quit. Then White Mike quit, too, but visited us months later to ask if we'd heard from Black Mike. We hadn't so White Mike left the store and we never saw him again. Susan was twenty years older than the rest of us and recently divorced. She was a single mother who worked the graveyard shift while her 13-year old babysat her 5-year old twins. Susan flirted with us young men but would always say that she was just practicing for the day when her heart healed enough to maybe maybe maybe fall in love again with a man her age. Hey, boss man, there's nothing minimum about a poor person's rage. No, there's nothing minimum about a poor person's rage. At the office job, Brenda asked me why I cut my long Indian hair and nodded her head when I said that no necktie guy in Spokane would've hired an Indian boy otherwise. She was white but she was as poor as me so she understood the economics if not the racism. I was the only male secretary in that job so I was also the only man at the secretary lunches where we ranked the bosses from best to worst. The other secretaries called me one of the girls though I think two of them had crushes on me while I had crushes on three of them. All these years later, I wonder if secretaries ever date other secretaries? How many of those kind of romances have bloomed? Hey, boss man, some white collar jobs are blue. Yeah, some white collar jobs are blue. Washing dishes in the student dining hall with Greg and Wayne, we burned our hands and arms. I still carry scars. We'd feast on uneaten steaks left on the plates after one banquet or another. Wayne was the future engineer and would detail all the ways in which he could improve the dishwashing process. Greg was the future accountant who could never get the clichés right. Once, when I said that I hated the job, he shrugged his shoulders and proclaimed, "If you don't like the oven then get out of the frying pan." When I quit, Greg said that "Every job is like a bird in one hand and a bird in the other hand." Hey, boss man, I might have followed your commands. My body might have been your broom but my soul was never your dust pan. Where are you now, my co-worker friends? I hope you're got a job you love that pays you a living wage. I remember you. I remember the day when I found on the ground a coupon that promised a free six-pack of Coke. So I walked to the nearby supermarket for the redemption. I carried the Coke to my favorite cashier but she told me the coupon had expired. Then she whispered, "It's okay. Take it." So I did. That cashier makes documentaries now. She came to a reading of mine years ago. I didn't know that she'd connected the famous writer me with the poor kid I'd been. She hugged me and we laughed and commiserated about the employment and unemployment that we'd endured. I haven't seen her since but I sometimes think of her when I'm in a supermarket. I think of my old friends when I'm in a deli. When I'm in a pizza place. When I'm washing dishes after dinner. When I'm talking to customer service as they type info into their computer. When I type my poems into my machines. Dear friends, I saw you and you saw me even as most of the world only glanced at us or didn't notice us. We were blood and bone instruments making their lives better while our lives stayed the same kind of difficult, stayed heavy with poverty and shame. Hey, boss men, I know this won't cause you any pain but I barely remember who you were and I've forgotten almost all of your names. Yeah, boss men, I've forgotten, I've forgotten your names.
“My soul was never your dustpan” 🍕
So hard to succeed with a poem working outward simultaneously from a true emotional center, a true lyric center, and a true political center.
Sherman, this one is a major achievement.