work and love

I think of all the jobs
I've had since childhood.
being a paper boy with a red
wagon
and a dog trotting beside
me in the early
twilight
of morning.
I washed dishes
in dingy diners, swabbing
plates of cigarettes
and potatoes, slippery
remains of
jam and eggs.
I've carried bricks
for men who flicked their
finished cigarettes at you,
for fun. i've
dug ditches, hung pink
loaves of insulation
between the studs of new
homes.
I been a carpenter,
a painter.
I've swept and mopped
hallways in the stair wells
of half lit
apartments in hard times.
I've loaded lumber onto
box cars,
pushed mowers over wet grass
up to my knees. i've
sold suits and sharp dress
shoes, before I owned either.
I've worked in
cubicles, punching at the keys,
never seeing the sun.
and yet, behind it all,
it was never about money,
never about,
shelter or possessions.
it was never about things.
it was always, now that I
look back on it, it was
always about finding
love and it finding me.