Inheritance
(refusal is compassion;
a necessity relearned)
For Legend
labor is a trauma and i’m forgetting the shifts we worked
together.
instead i see us on the couch, after a 10 hour grind,
still in our uniforms. maybe this is bitter. you tell me how they waited
9 months before promoting you because the GM hated you. but
when the pay raise
1 hit, the work didn’t change. they made me wait
9 months before promoting me because the GM forgot
who i was. new nametag, new shirt, and the pay raise. but i already
had keys. did you give them to me? there’s something you left
me. if not the keys, maybe
somewhere between i don't want to be here and i want
someone to try me, you’d let me go home on time2. or maybe, somewhere
between the last two minutes of a shift and the door, a customer screams
at me and you tell him no3. when the furlough ended, you decided
not to come back. so simple; just us, the paycheck, and the bullshit
in between. at another workplace, a customer tells me i’m stupid.
i tell him no4. i can’t wait to tell you this.
1 a dollar above minimum
2 thank you
3 thank you
4 thank you
(in a place of labor there is always an escape)
for LBG
1.
before i took breaks in my car,
we’d get high in the trash
closet. that funk could cover
anything. my first supplier giggling.
we’d anxiously fan the vapors
till they littled to air. it was
also a good place to cry.
2.
the managers can’t tell
as long as you try.
and even if they find out you
are either high or sad or
both it wouldn’t matter.
they only need to know if
something is wrong.
3.
you fell in the walk-in fridge. cried
from the pain. frustrated
cause we knew if you
asked for comp, they would ask
for a drug test. the cold
made your breath foggy.
4.
i learned you were a genius
in the stock closet. when you
handed me your wax pen,
i looked up. like instinct.
like god. smiling knowing
we were alone.
Ian Haugen
Ian is a queer poet based in Arizona. He is the author of a little chapbook called “SERVICE” published by Panchanga Press. He writes about labor and melodrama and you can follow him on Twitter @haugen_dazs if you’re into that sort of stuff.