Portside

Heavy Work

By Lita Kurth

Cut a straight line

through concrete

Hold that

machine with muscled arms

Let it throb, whine

and grind

Cool it

with a hose

Now hack it

with a pick-axe

Jar every muscle

in your back

arms

and fists

Hoist a sledgehammer

make a small quake

through vertebrae

that someone sitting on a porch can feel

a dozen feet away

Lift a chunk of concrete

twelve inches wide

five inches deep

Lift again

again

Don’t curse

the muscles along your spine

that know you’re fifty

Feel the rasp of rock

on tender

inner arm

hands

already tough as hooves

Carry concrete rock

to wheelbarrow

lift and drop

balance the barrow

full of chunks

Don’t grunt

Roll it

Lift the handles

higher

higher

till the concrete budges, slides, falls

rattles, raises dust

Eat that dust

for twenty or thirty

more loads

Clear an area

seventy-two

by three feet

Pause for Pepsi

don’t complain

work four hours straight

Tee shirt wet in front

wet in back

Thank God

for cloud cover

Pack the hose

on the side of the truck

heavy-duty extension cords

back in their iron pocket

Fold the check

And put it in your shirt

start the engine

this is

what it takes

this is

work

Lita Kurth, MFA- Rainier Writers Workshop (PLU) has received multiple Pushcart and Best of the Net nominations for fiction and Creative Nonfiction. “This is the Way We Wash the Clothes,” (CNF) won the Diana Woods Memorial Award (Lunchticket). She is co-founder of San Jose’s literary reading series, Flash Fiction Forum and teaches at De Anza College and in private workshops. A member of the Working Class Studies Association, she frequently presents at their conferences.