Why spend all your time laboring over
labor? Slaving away in your dark mind
you forget you were once like the plover,
spanning continents in patterns undefined.
What happened to that flight? You took cover
in a warm, sticky place, you left behind
your motive for living, the prime mover
of your unconscious impulse, that orange rind.
Why spend all this time working and working?
For survival, even though it kills me.
I hear Death’s jagged cough lurking, lurking
in my asthmatic heart when Spirit fills me
and my lips get chapped from too much smirking
since I don’t respond and the pain chills me.