Trigger Warning
his broken hands reaching towards
coins that rattle weakly inside the plastic change jar he keeps in the center console.
he scoops out enough to buy dinner,
that’s all he’s got left.
working like mad, lifting slabs of concrete and marching them around construction sites.
Endlessly gripping and moving
like some Sisyphean creation being senselessly and eternally punished.
& when he reaches the orange of the cones marking off the construction zone,
he blinks at the bleakness of his fate:
endless labor,
hopeless life,
the possible futility of love,
company profits he’d never receive,
anxiety-ridden nights spent nervously pacing around the apartment complex
it is the world he knows,
and all of her quirks.
He whispers the old Picasso line “I, the king.”
He goes home after work and creates his own art.
suddenly, it is the world he commands,
& all of her beauty.