when you're out of work
a new kind of dictionary defined,
old filters replaced, perspectives refined

take the respite resort word
the "weekend,"
when you are unemployed,
it starts on a Monday,
and runs seven days consecutive,
and the words
"week"and "end" can no longer be married,
for each,
just a new cuss word

when you're out of work,
the sweet small spaces of your home,
revised by the architect
of the mind,
somehow sudden, two sizes smaller,
fewer doors and windows,
light and air, hesitant to enter,
no Vermeer here,
staleness re-covers everything,
new is worn, and worn is
you

when you are fired,
you comprehend the word's meaning clearer,
now, your every thought feels like twelves cylinders firing,
you've become
furnaced, tempered,
dressed daily in an orange yellow colored
jumpsuit, with UNEMPLOYED
across a bent back,
self-censoring the spoken and the unspoken,
when you have no work,
everything important is twice the work,
believing, now a chore,
loving, a labor lost

when you're unemployed

a new kind of dictionary defined,
old filters replaced, perspectives refined,
many words excised,
so few required,
so few desired,
they as well,
rank, and unemployable,
and everything reads
left to right

And when the waves retreated
The sea refused to accept them
Pushed them back out
Each time they receded

It never understood
Even when it pushed them back out
It owned them and made them
A part of itself

For one can only push away
That which is theirs
One can only disown
That which they command

Because if they actually left
A flood would ensue
The city would be destroyed
And guilt would **** the sea itself