Labor
My long ago mother
used to string together cheap jewelry,
baubles and glitter threaded onto silvery strings
for a begrudging merchant
who kept a cramped second floor office
near what I later knew as Smithfield Market.
I would go with her
for I had nowhere to go but with her.
The very thought of 'nowhere' now
fills my mind with the muddy puddles
I used to jump into as we walked for miles
to a place where she sold
her time absorbing, paid for hourly
and tedious labor.
A place where an elderly, sour
and sniffing man doled out
a few coins into her open hand.
A scant amount and never enough of it
for us to ride a London bus
back to where we came from.
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