somebody something – payment in June
for debt from December when the cold
reached into your gut, held you down.
Work is one pair of shoes each season –
grown man barefoot all summer long,
and mules for the freeze all winter.
Work is the crocus sack, stained
with dung and sweat, smacking your back,
filled with cotton. Work is the day
you think you are grown enough
to run, to stop this constant stepping back,
only to find that big-bellied white man
with his straw hat, overalls, cigar
in his mouth and black-as-night shades,
with a shotgun in his hand saying,
"Here are some stripes, nigger,
nice stripes to help you work better.
Now you get three meals a day, uncle,
now you get a bed to sleep on, boy,
now you got something to live for."
Work is the time you spend trying to eat away
the time you owe, work is all a nigger has
for sure, and work tells you that nobody,
nobody is going to give you something
for nothing. Work is like breathing,
but after a while there is no more
breathing left, and every breath
is a loan, and your pocket is empty,
and you will never pay it back. Work is all
a man has, and work is nothing,
nothing at all – work, work, work, work...
SOURCE: Sturge Town: Poems by Kwame Dawes, published
by Peepal Tree Press Ltd., UK, 2023, pp. 82-83.