Do us scofflaws belong here us scoured and laughingstock
who drag up
our work sacks
our brickbags yes trowels
our mortar
us women whose bellies are sag low
and scuff
and leave a white trail where they drag cross the floor
Do our husbands assigned us wake up in the trenches
and hear us salute
our nimrod our blind man
(who carved us
our plot is who fired
our furnace)
and our blessing’s our work and our building’s our blessing
•
Letter the peregrine delivers my husband each morning reads death to the boss
because boss
means you watch him
when he shears
my wool in the break room
and burning his name in my flanks you won’t
doubt I’m livestock
A boss is like god
only smarter a boss means you hear him
he settles
my name in the ledger
and signing his name on my timesheet he writes
I’m babel in chalk
His signature doesn’t it look good to eat just like peasant bread
All the holes
nibbled through
in his yeast
all his crusts
good and stale
for my soups
A boss means
the leather
that holds up my slacks
he scratches
his name there the pennies
I place in my loafers
that shine
on the tongue
It’s death to the boss because boss
means he authors
the front of my paycheck and husband believe me I witness him
A fresh coat of flour
his name
on the crumbs I sneak home
His name is the mouse god when the mouse god abandons his hole
And husband why
is my name
always looks
like the last
train through
town hit it
Or better yet
our blind
nimrod’s chariot
And answer me husband will the boss sign me too
When you answer me husband
will the boss sign you
When she cries will we see
in chalk
in her mouth
the boss
on our child’s dead tooth
Let’s pray he signs her with fire and we all call her gospel
Let’s pray on my cable
back south
to the trenches
I graze
past the boss
on his way to the heavens
—-
Danniel Schoonebeek’s first book of poems, American Barricade, will be published by YesYes Books in 2014. A chapbook, Family Album, is forthcoming from Poor Claudia this fall. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Poetry, Tin House, Boston Review, Fence, Gulf Coast, BOMB, Indiana Review, Guernica, Denver Quarterly, jubilat, Verse Daily, Drunken Boat, and elsewhere. He writes a monthly column on poetry for The American Reader, hosts the Hatchet Job reading series in Brooklyn, and edits the PEN Poetry Series.