I.
beware,
I say unto you,
you un-men and un-women of the un-class,
the un-people of lesser jobs
and lesser homes,
if you have even one,
or a job-at-all,
un-graced with dirty hands,
dirty backs, eyes-of-coal,
thousand mile smiles, an
EBT card richer than you are.
you aren't pretty enough for six thousand dollar credit limits.
born-again trash labor,
unwashed second-hand aprons
and bible verses,
til death do you tithe,
deviled sparrow.
punch in.
punch out.
punch harder.
hit back.
cash out.
overdraft.
organize.
beware, the graveyard.
beware how delicately you wear
this crown of oblivion.
II.
gravel pits and lime, carefully
ringed fingers,
fists
and spite,
harden yourselves,
peoples of bewitched timelines,
for the horizon.
be not afraid,
shovel-nosed workers,
heavy-handed corn-stalk farmhands,
women of the blade and hour,
hard-legged cyborgs of the factory floor.
night has come.
you cannot die.
III.
end and endings,
undead flowers bloom in the thistle.
they bloom across your breasts.
enthroned bourgeois privilege stripped
of its promises
burns away
leaving only you.
the weltklasse,
in its wake.
This work originally appeared in the print edition of Locust Review #7.
Anupam Roy, Conservation (2021), black and white photograph of colored drawing.
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