Requires Heavy Lifting

   What can you offer?

I don’t know why I want this job.
I guess the hours seem good.

   The pay is painfully steep
it cost lives. Arms and legs, and ears, and heart.

There is only one heart per person
unless there’s a kid, or he’s in you:
sweet alien love-making, and the space is large,
separate, but all-holding
for a while, but still
you wake up with you,
your own shaking legs.

   You know, there are risks.

Hazardous materials.
Glass fragments, slivered
words that might infect,
time of years,
nights of no sleep,
excitement-anxiety balled inseparable,
sweating, with bleeding,
bruises, bankruptcy, unset bones
inflammation fatigue hallucination,
hallmark properties of insanity aflame,

bills to no one for no thing,
paper that is meaningless stuffing,
crayons and undesirable markers
for rent checks and power,
rainy days when the water comes in.

Penney Knightly is a survivor of sexual abuse; themes about that are often found in her work. Her poetry has appeared in BROAD Magazine, Big River Poetry Review, Dead King Magazine, Ink In Thirds, and elsewhere. She lives with her family on a sailboat in the San Francisco Bay, where she writes and makes art. She tweets @penneyknightly and shares on her blog: http://penneyknightly.com.