Laborer

Written while eavesdropping

The man began to cry

Four feet from my ears

Which stretched and strained

To catch his conversation

In their elastic curiosity

Great fat tears

Sliding down the mountains and valleys

Cheeks and hollowed out lines

In the corners of eyes and lips

Wetting the paper skin

As shoulders shook and hands trembled

Some words about a daughter

A young girl not seen for a while

The tender sorrow brought to

An unintentionally absent father

Pain is the color of the water

Draining from the ducts

on this man’s lash line

his white overalls

stained with the sun

of labor done with his hands

not his mind

his face now drying

salty residue in the hairs of his chin

lapping up the remains of his Americano

I lose interest 

Reviews

[. serah .]

-- what a startling definition of pain... -- a stunning piece of writing... social commentary that tears the reader apart... particularly when one reaches the closing and how it reveals our detachment from those who are suffering around us...