Dream job |

Dream job

(to be read in the head in the voice of Jane Goodall)
Not really.

I have a dream job.
I should say I have a job in my dreams.
I mean in my dreams I have a job.

I am saying when I’m sleeping I’m working.

Other people may fly and drive spagetti
but I punch a clock
wear a jumpsuit
and work in a bleak factory
picking out tiny defective pieces
from a fast moving conveyor belt.

Or sometimes I solder tiny electronic components
onto boards for 8 hours.

I carry a lunch pail and a paunch.

I am called Larry
I’m required to wear a hairnet
the even more absurd beard-net
and clear booty slips over my work-boots.

I have okay benefits and two weeks paid vacation,
and for that time I dream without working,
but the wage is oppressive and there is no opportunity for advancement.

There is a strong union and sometimes I attend meetings
but mostly for the snacks and coffee.

my wife has become her mother and my child is a stranger to me.
She is called Stephanie.

She is a cat, this is after all a job in a dream.

Sometimes while working I glimpse my waking life
I think about escaping into my real life
while discerning, deeming and removing imperfections
in repetative efficient, practiced, plastic-gloved movements.

My lower body forms a large stub
where legs are normally found
and there is a single, wide wheel where the feet would be
that is made of hardened tissue similar to a tusk but with some elasticity like rubber
formed from the same fiber as fingernails and hair, of which I have neither.
this is after all a dream.