Work by Robert King

Work

by Robert King

published in Rattle, Summer 2008

The workmen over and above the fence

fit bricks, lift mortar, slap it accurately

in place. Guilty by sitting idle, I

imagine they envy my luxury

of doing nothing until I remember

the days I had my hands full of shovel,

the dragline plowing the ditch of a sewer

through a future subdivision and how

I pitied those who walked by our work

with no apparent occupation,

denied the pleasure of making something,

piece by piece—even if it would soon

be buried—they would depend upon.