Cleaner
He stoops and wipes the surface of
the small washroom cabinet: he opens
the small door places two rolls of toilet
paper in it, two bars of soap on the side
of the sink, wipes the bowl, lucky here
the bowls aren’t like the filthy ones
in the army where he spent two years
before emigrating to Canada; he
empties the small basket with its few
leftovers, luckily enough the toilet
paper is discarded in the bowl…he
now has one last chore: to mop
the floor of the 28th floor before he’ll
go down one and so on until he
reaches the main floor late in the
afternoon in this much-needed job
he got into this foreign land especially
for one who isn’t fluent in the new
language, as in his case, and who
although a university graduate this
is the only job he could land in
his early days in Canada where
having a degree from another
Faraway University makes not a single
difference in the great scheme of things
Libros Libertad 