Sitting Down to Work Tentside at 4 A.M.

(This poem was written three years ago when, to do this work, the poet was forced to live in a tent. It applies just as well this early morning to her life, now in a van.

Those who curl their lip to see her pull up have never known what it is to sleep without a bed, eat without a stove, or work to ones capacity without earning enough respect from ones society even to hope for a real home ever again)

*****

Take off your boots so you can sit cross-legged

Put your slippers on over your socks, or you know you’ll be sorry

Pull your gloves all the way up your arms

Pull your sleeves all the way down over them

Do it again until the gloves stay up and the sleeves stay down

Repeat after every half dozen bodily motions

Put both your hoods up

Arrange your cloak carefully so that it covers your knees but leaves your arms free to move

Place a towel over it, now, because you know that sooner or later something will fall on this lap tonight.

Move your shawls, cloak and scarves out of the way of your elbow, to make room for the small folded pillow which supports the arm that holds your mobile device — which at standard user posture is proven to exert the equivalent of sixty five pounds of lift pressure in the neck and upper spine

Adjust pillow according to hight of accumulated fabrics, to ease shoulder strain over the long hours you will be online

Locate your reading glasses, and put them on

Reach for your handheld device

Plug into it the spare battery you charged outdoors by solar panel yesterday

Move the cord out of the way of all else which is in your way

Oh, wait

Forgot your water
Way over there

*****

Among us, poets are not paid. The poet/editor of this website, being physically disabled, lives at a fraction of her nation’s poverty level, and currently lives in her vehicle. Become a patron of the fine arts at: https://www.gofundme.com/are-you-a-patron-of-the-arts