Tonight's Poet Corner: The Jobber
The Jobber by Belinda Roddie I literally wrestled with the fact that you were leaving me today. I pinned it down on the cheap green carpet in the living room, gripping its limp wrists so tightly that my knuckles went Moby Dick white. It flailed for a few minutes. It gasped for air like a dying fish, even though my knee was only threatening to crack its pelvis and not the ribs cradling its lungs like a dead man's faceless children. You had packed one suitcase, and in it were three things. The first thing was your dignity, wrapped up in a dish towel that you had once used to clean the salt off my cheeks after I ruined your last birthday cake. That cloth still holds the stains, as if trying to recreate Jesus Christ's face so you can sell it on eBay and buy back your time spent with me, too. The second thing was your grandmother's ring, the one with the sapphire that was older than we were, brighter than I was, bluer than your eyes, which so many pe