day job

I posted this earlier today and then spent some time reading Mary Oliver’s A Poetry Handbook, which led me to do a little revising.

it was good he was so hard at work
there was much to do from where he stood
next to the bags of candy

while his mother browsed the stacks
of cards and books a good distance away
across the wide pine boards

of what was once a tobacco warehouse
now a coffee house and grocery store
he carried two bags at a time

shuffling his baby blue Crocs across the floor
his eyes beaming as bright as his smile
and not once did she ever tell him to stop

she simply received the shipments
from her determined and diminutive deliverer
and kept about her task

until their work was done and it was time to go
she put the bags back in their bucket
and they smiled their way home to a well-deserved nap

Peace,
Milton

P. S. — There’s a new recipe.