HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN DOING THIS?
How long have you been doing this?
If I were you, I would have left
twenty-five years of shit and piss.
Unclamp my leg bag. Hear it hiss.
Remove my diaper. Feel its heft.
How long have you been doing this?
Does this give you eternal bliss?
Ungoop the poop between my cleft.
Twenty-five years of shit and piss.
You kneel before my wheels and kiss
your life away in one grand theft.
How long have you been doing this?
By falling into this abyss,
has your career left you bereft?
Twenty-five years of shit and piss.
Of all attendants I will miss
your latexed hands, so light and deft.
How long have you been doing this?
Twenty-five years of shit and piss.
—from Rattle #69, Fall 2020
Tribute to Service Workers
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Andre Le Mont Wilson: “I work as a backup personal care attendant five days a week at a program for adults with disabilities. Usually, I avoid telling people or writing poems about this aspect of my job. One day, as I was assisting a man in the restroom, he asked, ‘How long have you been doing this?’ I gave an evasive answer, ‘A quarter century.’ He said, ‘If I were you, I would be gone by now!’ His conversation so unnerved me that when I went on vacation to Mexico, his question repeated in my ear. I wrote my first villanelle because its repetition of lines mirrored how the man’s question echoed in my head.” (web)
