#actually i first heard this poem when he read it at the woodland pattern poetry marathon

[razorsadness]

Sonnet to the Country Club Ladies at Madison Park Cafe

"Every job is dignified" is easy to say to someone sweeping up your breadcrumbs. Mere tolerance scrubs from sight the labor that complicates your latte. The night-shift's

stars burnish skies for no one, such as me. I know how wiping a stained sink basin and scouring a public toilet's wide mouth will draw a person's eyes down like a monk

who smolders over a lit match. I once heard a sage from China folded maxims into cranes to float them down the river. He knew the porous paper made them sink.

Tonight, I'll sign my name with a wet mop until I make the floor below us shine.

—Paul Hlava Ceballos (x)