Pastime

My hands feel the work
tying wires together or thumping
with the hammer at night
the next day, a release
is needed from the day
and from the night
when nothing is going my way
and no one is thinking of me
and I cannot be truly myself
even when alone.

A tightness grows
between my shoulder blades
at the constant battles
and barbed wire and loss
of grace. We are doomed
I think and squabble
over the dirt we have left
for ourselves. The loss
of distance, the sense of history,
squandered and buried
under our own shit.