It is a day’s work we do,
And where does one find its end?
I was a teacher for twenty years;
Ex-students still haunt me in K-Mart
And at Sonic and in nightmares
About pajamas and podiums,
The lost child inquiring
You hate me, don’t you?
Into the broken sidewalk
Of my escaped world. A day’s work
To this life on the other side
Of that world. Married with child
In one day and single with dogs
The next and single with nothing
And everything looming like a convict
Sprinting through the dark,
Orange coveralls neon in the night,
The scent of freedom like cedar
Beside a creek in June. A day
Is all we have, all we need.
I am the journey I’m on.
–Shaun Perkins
Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry 