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For Work

Matthew Czerwinski

I pass out flyers for an after school
program. Every day I am at the same
school in my neighborhood, me standing
in my yellow company shirt,
making sure to keep just off school property,
waiting for someone to talk to me.

It is bad but I have kept it
because I am comfortable here,
killing time as a representative
for some nameless thing. Sometimes

I stand by the blocked-off end of the street
and move the road blocks for cars.
Sometimes I talk with the two neighborhood girls
that live across the street from the school.
They think I’m funny. Sometimes
I bring a soccer ball

and make a goal out of the gaps in
these fence posts, just to goof around,
me and the few others on site here,
to kick at the cars while
we wait. I do this,
mind you, for eight dollars an hour

plus commission
which I don’t make, wandering amidst
the hordes of parents, or sitting here on the
fence at the end of the block

writing my poem. The soccer ball
is both an act of solidarity for our
hermanos Puertorriqueños and
to say “my commission has and
will always come

from the shape I make out of
all this waste in my life.” Like every
protest song wrenched from the chest
of the broken down victory is symbolic
and defeat, well. Just

look at me. It’s 8 AM and I’m
sneaking that damn soccer ball
past our site coordinator, the kids
on the playground in their
white-and-blue CPS uniforms
all throwing their hands up, yelling
“Gol! Gol! Que linda!” as I fall to my

knees, clenched fists in the air,
eyes closed in a snapshot of glory
hearing the roar of the crowd swell
in my ears. Defeats, my friends,
come when you engage them.

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