Twenty eight oil cans: 
I’d wipe each down and stack them 
one by one, offset, 
so that the can above
was supported by two below,

first a row of seven, then a row of six,
then five, and four, and so on
until I placed the last can in the apex position.

A break to smoke, or fill up with leaded,
wash a windshield, carefully uncork 
a scalding radiator cap, 
draw a dipstick from its slender sheath, 
or pace the lanes like a sheriff on patrol,
the heavy coin changer hanging from my belt, 
the big bell’s double-ring
with each car that came and went 
like the bell telling boxers when to fight
and when to quit,
admiring through the plate glass window 

this monument 
to big oil and minimum wage, 
chevrons all aligned, checkmarks
on the ledger of my dull but earnest labor:

I thought that it would last forever.