elsewhere

I make a point of climbing right up the scaffold
instead of using a ladder

but once up there, I'm just as fucked as
the ladder-climbers

the panels are not level;
they do not join at right angles;
the seams are not meeting on the studs.

the screws leap into the gypsum and spin free,
or deflect and burrow sideways

the teacher is elsewhere.
three of us wait for the fourth,
who is trimming half an inch

it is hot up here.
I take off my hardhat.
soon (?) this will be a classroom
but the laundry machines are still here,
hot, tumbling
I put my hardhat back on
sweat drips down my face


the panel still doesn't fit
the teacher is elsewhere

I suppose what we are really learning here
is how to plod in the face of entropy