from "The Second Book of Job"
I.
Everyone gets to be Job for a year.
Or more. Gets to feel that trembling and fear
of losing it all, watching it get lost.
Everyone learns that lesson. Knows that cost.
You’re not alone when the divorce lawyer
warns about the marital home. Or you’re
not alone, when you learn another boss
governs the universe – and not you. Loss
is inevitable. But it’s what’s next
that no one remembers. We get the shit.
We forget the growth. So never forget
that in the end you might just get a sexed
up mate who loves you more than anyone
who ever did. With all those others done.
*
from "The Second Book of Job"
II.
Job Junior lost the marital home when
He and his Ex- were in arbitration
and this clause became paragraph 3 (B),
in the Clerk-filed dissolution decree,
cause 49 dash 33, CV,
and a “you” and an “I” replaced a “we.”
He transferred thirty-eight thousand dollars,
and he intuited things could be worse,
much worse. Put one thousand books – poetry,
Literature, drama, philosophy –
Into storage. He took the last unit,
next to the dumpster, the only model
not re-modeled. Sat down with a bottle
on the porch. Impoverished and moonlit.
*
from "The Second Book of Job"
III.
Job’s losses left him as blind as Homer
or Milton and now he is the owner
of very little. Someday his awareness
will match that of the poets. He has less
to carry homeward, and has no homeward
to speak of. It’s impossible to look
back without becoming frozen. His Book
is closed. To lose faith, okay, but the Word?
It was lost as well. So at the machine,
for a spell, staring at the keys, the screen,
and his hands, it all came out gibberish:
“NIGHT OLD MAN HATE MONEY WHITE LUSTY DISH. . .”
For now, it was just blindness, no insight.
That spirit of Homer would have to wait.
*
from "The Second Book of Job"
IV.
This particular Job, losing ‘The Word,’
just let it all rip and let it all out.
Typed away. Just squeezed out every turd
that fell out of his mental ass. About
midnight he filled three pages’ worth:
HOTEL BILLS . . . SAME ROOM . . . WEDDING NIGHT . . . HORSE TRACK . . .
ROUTE TO THE HEART . . . MILLIONAIRE . . . HE GETS IT . . .
FREE LOVE . . . MONEY FOR THE PONIES . . . YOU SAY
MORE ANAL . . . TALK ABOUT THE SECOND BIRTH . . .
I WAS NOT THERE FOR THE FIRST . . . TAKEN BACK
IN TIME . . . DIRTY UNDERWEAR . . . ODD DEBTS . . . SHIT . . .
WHAT’S HAPPPENING . . . DO I DOUBT . . . DO I PRAY . . .
HELL . . . PURGATORY . . . PURGATORY . . . HELL . . .
But she was gone. He knew things would end well.
*
from "The Second Book of Job"
VI.
Another Job lost seven days with each
of 2 sons out of every two weeks.
“Fifty-fifty fair” made it hard to bitch
but he did anyway, however weak
it left him feeling. And the Ex- would switch
this day for that day so many days
that he recognized a slow, distinct leak
in his clock, his calendar, in his haze.
Sanity was a thing now out of reach.
There was no point in trying to talk her
into paying back time. This was not her
M.O. And he couldn’t pay the lawyer.
He recalled the man in the coat, the wind,
the Sun . . . that fable would win in the end.
*
from "The Second Book of Job"
VII.
Another Job lost his credit rating.
His wife decided to have an affair
with Neiman-Marcus, or women’s clothing,
generally speaking. A millionaire
was the last affair. It was spending power.
That was the deal. In an icky hour
in a hotel room beneath his pay grade
he allowed her equal status: she paid.
Savings accounts and college funds went down.
He learned her weakness was the winning horse.
Wads of fives and tens turned up in drawers.
(It takes a lot of paint to paint the town)
This Job inherited: a millionaire.
Grew bored with the track. But loved the clothing.
