produce

I walked into that job:

turns out the last guy
got a hammer to the head
walking home.

they waited across the road
with their hammer in the shadows
while he locked up the shop.
they thought he took
the earnings home with him.

imagine being that ignorant
of how jobs work,
of not knowing
that his wages
go into a bank account,
or that his wages
are a fraction
of the company's profit,
that in this post-neo-capitalist age,
a worker
does not own the shop they work in,
the shop
owns the worker?

can you imagine such ignorance?

think of this clueless cannibalism
as they gripped their hammers in the shadows,

as the last guy's
final thought
for some time
was HOPE I DON'T MISS THE LAST BUS HOME
or something

and the company,
they don't care.
they won't pay for security
or more staff,
the company
waits in its own shadows:
its shareholders
gripping their shares
like hammers.
the company
quietly replace him from the shadows

they replace him with me
from a safe shadowed distance

cannibals feeding cannibals

for they would not be seen dead
on the shop floor
they have shares in.

sounds like I will be, though.