Employment
Despite the promises
I don’t think the afterlife offers
much rest. Maybe I’ve lived
too long with the habit
of labor not to mistrust
an eternity of indolence.
Whatever the chore
or chores,
they probably won’t involve
pouring concrete or drinks,
grading papers or shooting grade
for a hungover equipment operator
waiting to open a ditch.
If there is anything
beyond this clockpunch
existence, it won’t be anything
we recognize. We’ll arrive, new hires,
green as willow bark, a life
of skills useless while
we learn whatever
we are here to learn.
It will help if we remember
nothing of what came before.
It will help if we remember
we know nothing.
Al Maginnes’ 15th poetry collection, Second Line, was just published by Redhawk Publications. His next book What Is There will be the initial offering from Seed Bed Press. New poems appear or are forthcoming in Lake Effect, Rattle, National Poetry Review. Glassworks, and several others. He is retired from teaching and lives in Raleigh, NC.
