I Get Only Four Hours Sleep These Days

by Ellen June Wright

Once I sat outside the local supermarket

in my idling car

trying to wait out the need to buy

the largest bottle of pain killers

and take them all.

But when I look at you, I realize

my life is easy.

I'm not cleaning the hind parts

of incontinent, decaying men

who spit on me.

I don't come home with shit

smudges on my once crisp whites

and feel my daughter shrink back

from the smell of death that lingers in my clothes.

I don't climb the stairs

trying to get a few hours rest

before having to rise again.

In your day, trying to feed us

without a high school diploma,

you went on only two hours sleep

many a night

going from the Westmore nursing home

to the other on the Cliffs.

I get only four hours sleep these days

between work, school and study.

I'm not a laborer, but this is work too,

and I'm working hard, Mom,

almost as hard as you.