Swish, swish. Street-sweepers go in lock-
step, though each has their own biological clock;
each uniquely wields their pulsating brooms, though
someone would claim all are woken by roosters.
Street-sweepers will teach you how to smash
the truth that cleanliness is the absence of trash.
They'll prove it with their own swishing and capture,
including the truth's shards geometrizing the texture
of the insides of their bottomless garbage bags.
There underneath, as abysmally as it gets,
you'll find even more of those shards, that's without
all sorts of filth
flattened out.
You'll never see street-sweepers hurry or fuss;
they carry themselves with such dignity and class,
while you tighten the fat of your desk-jokey belly,
when your grumpy superior
wants to turn you to jelly.
Mom wants her child to make it through school,
then jump to college — all to grow the pool
of lawyers, managers, marketers, psycholo-
gists, that is, experts in the eternal soul. Oh,
she has no issue with this dream at all,
so long as her child will stand fair and tall;
she would never want to see them street-sweeping,
including the shards of her dreams and tears of her weeping.
Yet, life arranges roles, issuing a decree,
who will tighten their fat, and who is to steer
the truth with their very hands, sweeping in style,
and be celebrated in verse
or maybe
in prose.