Another Day on the Roof
The cock crows
as the blinking moon slips into a dark corner.
She crawls out of bed and pulls on her faded jeans
long stiff from the stench
that no machine can wash away.
Soon her well-worn shovel will crack the old tar and gravel, splitting it into thousands of shiny black chunks, the black dust settling everywhere.
Fragments become tons and are hurled into a lumbering truck caked with dirt.
The roof is swept and swept again, exposing an acre of plywood and a growing mountain of debris; as the boom box drones in cadence, to
Shovel, hurl, sweep
Shovel, hurl, sweep
Shovel, hurl, sweep
The body learning what the day requires.
By eleven a.m., the roof is sporting a black tar paper suit studded with silver nail buttons
to be finished by day's end, when it will be complete in modified bitumen torched down to create a seal. A silver reflective coating is later rolled over it, as the sun continues its onslaught, frying her soot-soaked skin.
She works until sundown, and they drive to dump the debris. Then, to Safeway to buy dinner, looking like a trio of grimy vagabonds, hungry and bone-tired. Drawing curious stares as she brusquely fingers moist cash and blows black snot into wads of brown paper napkins.
Hours later
sinking into the couch
her feet are propped up on top of the coffee table
ten painted toes pointing and flexing
inhaling Rocky Road ice cream.
Exhaling slowly as exhaustion sets in
as she steels herself to begin again tomorrow
for another day in paradise
another day on the roof.
