Dark

The toilet clogs, and a man takes up the plunger and the snake
and tackles it.
He moves the plunger up and down, as if he was
plunging his woman, or himself.

He feeds the snake into the hole and rotates it.
Elbow grease, foul air, the diagnostic phrase rubber gasket disintegration.
He likes this job
because no one else would want it,
because a man feels comfortable with shit.

He goes at it in the same way
that he does his life,
unable to tell
exactly what is going on down there
in the interior,
banging his head
against the outside, forcefully,

yet happy with the work, knowing that in some sense
it suits him perfectly —
his willingness to sweat, his stubbornness, his freedom
from the need to understand.
Good man. Good man. Good man.

Tony Hoagland