After Work
I scrub the grease off my hands.
It’s been years since I shook the dust
off my feet looking for light on the other
side of my neighborhood. The way back
to the road is blocked and the old men
in town tell me not to take it. How long
have people been waving?
Now and then I find myself stretched out
on a couch. No one knows I’m angry.
Sometimes even I can’t tell.
Days and nights come and go.
Is there any way to release myself
from the wrath to come, the red
holy eyes of God distributed
across the landscape?
I tell myself to breathe dependable
breaths and wash my face in the sink
before I leave my house, before I see
darkness as intruding velvet and moonlight
as a mask covering the sky.
My hand is as big as an ant farm.
It moves like a colony into my clothes.
I am a calculus of curves,
something sharp and Newtonian,
something new for the children to climb.
My work is done.
Joel Fry lives in Athens, Alabama. His poetry has been published in Off the Coast, Asheville Poetry Review, The Florida Review, North Dakota Quarterly, and many other places. He has two books of poetry: The Sound of Rain (Cyberwit, 2021) and Late Alabama (Outskirts, 2020).