BODIES INSIDE BODIES
The job started at 6AM
so I needed to be up at 5
to shower and shave
and make the commute
to the aluminum shed
where we decided
which tools to pack.
It was a landscaping gig
and we sweated all day
endlessly bending to the grass
then reaching for the trees
until our muscles felt
like taffy pulled until
it wouldn’t stretch any more
then we drank until the world
lined up like a sunset
and not a hole to be dug
and we drank and drank
and bought drinks
and accepted drinks
and made new friends
who worked jobs
that kicked them
in the teeth and we all
sort of fell in love
and now the bars were closed
and her place was open
but it’d be 3 in the morning
by the time we made it
to bed and maybe later
to get naked and longer
for her to take my cock
and better still
the rolling around
so I could lick
her pussy while she
massaged my balls
with both her hands.
I’d lost jobs before
but it still felt bad
letting the old men
on the crew down
when I slept in.
None of them liked
the delicate work
of trimming shrubs
to perfect squares
and they’d have to
swallow their coffee
and smoke their cigarettes
without my complaints
about secondhand cancer.
Bless us all for what
we need blessed by.
I know you have your religion
but for me there is no greater
miracle than our bodies
being inside each other’s bodies.
It’s worth cutting work
or more, at least until
you need paid.
Dave Newman, a recent Pushcart winner for fiction, is the author of ten books, including Better Than the Best American Poetry (Roadside Press, 2025) and the story collection She Throws Herself Forward to Stop the Fall (Roadside Press, 2024). His collection The Slaughterhouse Poems (White Gorilla Press, 2013) was named one of the best books of the year by L Magazine. He was a finalist for the Rattle Poetry Prize and won their Readers’ Choice Award in 2024. His poems, essays, and stories have appeared in magazines and journals around the world, including Ambit (U.K.), Tears In The Fence (U.K.), Gulf Stream, Belt, and the legendary Nerve Cowboy. He appeared in the PBS documentary narrated by Rick Sebak about Pittsburgh writers. Newman lives in Trafford, PA, the last town in the Electric Valley, with his wife, the writer Lori Jakiela. After a decade of working in medical research, he currently teaches in the Creative and Professional Writing Program at The University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg, his alma mater.
