Higher Calling
These days my job distracts me from my work.
Don’t get me wrong. I do like getting paid
a few bucks for board and bed, some small perks,
perhaps a book, perhaps a wife to trade
resentment for resentment. See? I’ve strayed
from my point, which is my point: my life
distracts me from my purpose. Getting laid,
raising kids, being brave to love my wife
in a landscape I have seeded till rife
with landmines, and telling a pissed-off boss
whose intellect is like a carving knife
that his equations are leading to loss
make me feel too tired and old to make time
for whatever height it was I was to climb.
—Peter Munro
—found in Painted Bride Quarterly (Issue 2019, No. 99)