In “honor” of the Bezos Met Gala this week, here’s a poem (found in the Ordinary Plots newsletter) about working in a warehouse. Poems! They apply to everything!
Logistics
by William Ward Butler
We were young sharks, boxcutters at our hips,
we worked overtime shifts, took ten-minute
nicotine breaks, quick hits, joked about buying
a guillotine for the boss as a Christmas present.
That winter was the worst for us, orders piling up,
a non-zero amount of blood allowed in the packages—
we all joked about dying young, DUIs among us
like a bouquet of orchids. Pablo would be in prison
in a year’s time. Most of us will have quit by then.
Back then, we were content to clock out and in,
rhythm and myth of what is called unskilled labor,
golden hours spent talking who else could do
what we’re doing, wondering if robots would take this
job too, not that we wanted to keep it, but we all had
rent to pay—some days, it didn’t feel like a bad gig.
I dreamed of sabotage (grabbing the PA, shouting
stop work now) but that was selfish;
I couldn’t keep myself from wanting a war
whenever the cause was just. I knew I had to leave
when I emerged from a sixty-hour week, saw all
the people outside, and thought, civilians.
