header

Home
About the author
Book / Readings

The poems

© 2010-2013

cable guy

It is late
And someone is impatient
For their HBO
Fourteen hours on the job
$10 an hour and a truck
But you have to buy your own gas
And if you can’t finish this job
Because you can’t dig a new line
In frozen earth under the brick driveway
You won’t get paid
(Paid by the job, not the hour)
And it’s nine o’clock at night
Three hours gone to waste
And someone stole the friggin’ ladder
Which you’ll have to pay for
And there is that shrieking witch
Complaining about the sawdust
Under her new jack
It’s hard to use tools, much less a broom
When your hands are frozen
Time to go home
To the one-bedroom apartment
And the empty refrigerator
After brushing shoulders
With the rich and famous
And the joke is
You can’t afford cable ….