In glass dreams I go
    wandering—you wait for me
with a mother’s hand

If there’s anything working the produce truck has taught me,
it’s that proper self-care means learning how to recognize
moments when it’s time to hang up your mask and cape
or, in my case, the jacket and gloves.

Six pallets still sit on the truck waiting
to be broken down and sorted
but not one more box will go into our cooler–
at least, not by my hand.

I’ll be clocked out and sitting in the pub
drinking to whoever’s finishing the job for me,
untrained on the power pallet jack and
having to move everything by hand and muscle.

Of course, the job would have been done
if certain other roles had been executed at optimal capabilities.
Forgive me for thinking a finite space could stand
as irrefutable logic for what can and cannot fit.

I hate that I have to waste words on this, but two minus zero
equals two fifty-pound cases to FIFO-rotate onto two new cases
just so four cases can still be sitting here
when the next truck comes and the product still hasn’t sold.

I’m getting kind of sick of this and I’m really fucking tired.

And that’s when mistakes happen. I’ve already
had a couple beers at the bar–what’s another couple?
I’ll DoorDash again when I desperately need to save money.
I’ll turn on the TV and waste the whole night away, escaping
just to come back in tomorrow to deal with the same shit,
different day way that everybody seems to approach life with
so it’s no wonder to me when eventually 
Superman doesn’t want to fly anymore.

So how about we find a way to put our feet on the ground
before we crash, eh?

Woe to he who doesn’t learn from his errors!
Woe to he who mistakes himself as being on top!
Woe to he who lets himself become
the fool the wise man learns from!

Let’s instead search for opportunities to lighten another’s load.
Let’s adopt a mindset of constant self-improval.
Let’s commit to finding someone to save in a world
that loves to say no one’s coming to save you

because that job
is never finished.

Because I’m not actually drunk right now
but another man’s in a stupor.
Because I have a stocked fridge
but another man’s eating out for the fourth time this week.
Because I’m not lost in phone, TV, or computer screens
but another man’s life is on it’s latest spiral down.

Rather, I’m sitting at home
able to rest
because I chose myself today

putting pen to paper
to craft 
more poetry for failures

hopefully shining a light on ways
to get out of bad situations
within my tiny sliver of the world.

And I can’t do my part
if I’m worn out before I get there.

    “A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service
    and compassion are the things which renew humanity.”
            –Buddha

Softball fields remain.

The steward has left the game.

His kind heart echoes.

Claude Monet, The Gare Saint-Lazare (or Interior View of the Gare Saint-Lazare, the Auteuil Line), 1877

Aloft
Prisms at play
Winkle a new beauty
Paint the sparkle of modern life
Vapor

the pattern is changed, somehow
not right, off
from what we’ve grown
to expect

the structure loosens, gaps
appear, uneven
tension that distorts
the shape

we are not unmade, nevertheless
dread the beating
necessary to salvage
the whole cloth

I want to move.

Then I remember
the boxes.
The back pain.

Never mind.

I leave the lamp on, dimmed low
             door half closed, as if you
          were still in the other room.
       I turn my neighboring pillow
     sideways, tucked in beside me—-
          I pretend I see the tv flicker,
   the faint clicks of the controller,
assuring me you’ll find your way.

            I try to drift and fall asleep,
            but I miss your love
            and warm embrace,
            as you call me darling, and
            have a pleasant dream.

    My fear is not from the dark.
               fear is not temporarily
                                         all alone.
                   The fear comes from
                                 your absence.

There is no squeak
on the hinged door,
and the sheets still stay cold,
and I wonder when I get old—
will I miss you as much
                               as I do now.

to the horns and brakes of Union City 
in the shadow of the Big Apple, 
with mother and father striving  
for the modern American life  
their immigrant parents had journeyed to.  
Raised in Brooklyn’s bright lights 
but preferring Omama’s simple 
household in Reading where you remained 
her kleiner Prinz, where you fled when needed.  
And years later you settled in the country,  
trading busy streets for rows of corn, strayed 
from parish ministry towards teaching, 
though father, grandfather and so on 
had spent their lives in pulpits.  

Come to think of it, you lived your mantras: 
“strike while the iron’s hot,” “be flexible” 
and “don’t expect consistency.”