C. L. Bledsoe: Sisyphus on the Line

One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

— Albert Camus

.

The meaning of life is thirty-two—that’s the number

of hours per week I’m allowed to work lest I get over-

.

time or full-time benefits. Chips and a soda for lunch

are all I can afford; the sugar and caffeine keep me going

.

on my feet checking Chinese knockoff goods that will fall

apart in a few weeks. But they’re cheap. Four hundred

.

dollars every two weeks is a stretch to pay rent plus food

plus gas; when my stomach gave out, I had to take a week

.

off, pay thirty, sixty, or more per day in copays to find out

I had colon cancer. That week plus the doctors’ bills landed

.

me out of my house. I’m sleeping on my son’s floor. But

I should be grateful. There’s nowhere else to work

.

in Mountain View except fast food because Wal Mart

pushed all the small business owners out. It’s my own

.

fault for buying twenty-dollar shoes and then replacing them

when they fell apart in a couple months. I just never had

.

a hundred to buy the ones that last.

.

—

copyright 2015 CL Bledsoe. First appeared in The Tipton Poetry Review.

Factory Work by Pyramidal. Copyright 2012-2014 Pyramidal.