Minimum Wage Poem by Laurence Overmire

If life can’t be loved
Lived long with passion
The deep caress of soulful
Night and day
What use then
The slow trudge of one foot
Already in the grave
Marking time
Counting pennies
Copper green pillows of envy
To put the pounding brain
To sleep
These nightmare sheep
Coagulate
The tossed head turned
With a spade
Death no more terrifying
Than life birthed unto its own
Mausoleum.


(Previously published in The Hold, March 2004)