Work

You think about death a lot
when you lift things for a living.
I stay healthy and my back is strong
but my wrist is sore from twisting it.

My shoulder blades ache underneath-
I hurt myself sometimes and it’s harder
to work. It’s easy to think about death
when a small piece of you goes bad.

I’ve pictured my knees crunched flat
by the long iron conveyor belt so often
I can feel the endorphins loading
their guns when the belt rumbles by.

The mind/body dichotomy becomes
the rag of the body damp with its mind.
Sometimes I can feel gravity
pooling the first drops up at my feet.