in celebration of two decades in the supermarket trade
My job is to orient the labels
on catfood and shitpaper: Lush aisles
sell. In second-language English Shido
asks, "So actually what does your father do?"
Hell. Here it come and nothing for it.
"A professor, boss. Business."
Confusion, as forecast,
surprise, and finally pity.
He doesn't ask actually why I never learned any,
how I missed the lessons.
Which is fine. I have no information.
It rhymes but its not pretty.
Tsering - Chinese prison, six months,
"Student resistance movement," laughing,
"Not very bad. Just talking talking talking." -
was another man who knew his business.
He and a buddy took a truck from India
loaded with generators
after some disaster (a flood?) in China
and sold them to his jailors.
They spent it all in a week
in Hong Kong. Girls and drink.
He worked my shift for years. Bought a house.
He offered one of us a last advice:
"Work eat sleep work eat die"
He threw himself from a bridge to end his sentence.
I've told these stories before,
and they are all true.
But they don't get to you.
Spicer said it
and he's fucking right -
"No one listens". And I still work there.
I can't make it pretty, I can just make it rhyme.
