Pump Truck Paupers
Men become aisles, sections,
stockers before the sun comes up,
names on nametags no one will remember,
puffy black eyes like idiot raccoons
working an overnight hustle,
pump truck paupers pushing pallets into place,
the snapping of wood under a great weight,
labels faced outward for pleasing effect,
masking injuries with a favoured gait,
moving impulse buys and end caps to the fore,
making things easy in a way they have never been,
box cutter shrink wrap slices down the side,
scuffed steel toes and grunts with each laboured lift,
a bed of old mouse droppings freshly disturbed,
and the hell of knowing your work is never done,
that may be the worst of all; realizing there is no way out
that others before you have not thought of
or even tried.
Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author who lives in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage. His work has been published both in print and online in such places as: The New York Quarterly, Red Fez, Evergreen Review, The Literary Underground, Horror Sleaze Trash, Rusty Truck, Zygote in my Coffee and The Oklahoma Review. He enjoys listening to the blues and cruising down the TransCanada in his big blacked out truck.
