Carpenter

You're sitting on the concrete

feeling December sneak in through your blue collar

raising the hairs on your neck and

turning your ears purple.

The ziplocked ham and cheese refrigerated

in nothing but it's paper bag tastes

normal.

Your brain bucket resting on some two-by-fours

is steaming with sweat

that will be replaced after lunch.

Sweat for the steel.

The beams that raise the city are nothing

without you.

Sweat for the clock.

The hands that hammer make the hands that spin

turn faster.

Sweat for the check.

Dolling out pieces to satisfy the electricity and keep

the landlord at bay.

When along comes a walrus

in his double-breasted Vera Wang

custom tailored to fit his blubbering body

that spills over his belt.

Wingtips click the concrete with every

flop of his enormous walrus legs.

He notices you and stops to examine this

foreign specimen.

As he sniffs around, he discovers some leftover

change in your pocket that Uncle Sam had missed.

Immediately gulping down those last coppers

he chokes on the last one.

The stench of his coughs fills the air with

stale swordfish sushi and your last minutes of overtime

and you stand over the beast, watching

as he clutches his throat and calls for a bail-out

but

you clock back in

hammering in the 9-to-5 timesheet

and not calling for help

because this beast only speaks walrus

and you're not bilingual.