Bruce McRae
It's a Job
The one who drives hogs screaming
to the slaughterhouse, whistling a happy tune,
smoking a cigarette he’d call well deserved,
twiddling dials on the old truck’s radio,
ogling women on this sunny summer morning.
Fulfilling his role, if not his destiny.
Carrying on in a world as sweet as it is bitter.
*
Our friendly neighbourhood gravedigger.
The quiet sort, who keeps to himself
and bides his counsel, off to work
each morning without a care in the world,
his cat left watching in the window.
He who deports himself as if one
maintaining a well-kept confidence.
A man to withhold Earth’s secrets.
*
I found work as a village idiot.
I sit on a fence and grin all day.
I get to shout at the incomprehensible
something-or-other which is all around us,
gesticulating wildly, like a drunken man
waving at flies that aren’t actually there.
The pay is poor, but I don’t mind;
in my line of work there are few expectations.
I just chew on a straw. Come rain or shine.
I just spit in the dirt. Come hell or high water.
*
The graveyard shift,
a killer of women and children,
of those who have two choices,
little or none, stars faltering,
the moon fallen down,
workers’ heads bowed
in determined reverence,
the righteous tucked into bed,
their dreams unhindered
by metal on bone.
By the issues that cause
much suffering.