This poem was co-published and supported by the journalism non-profit the  Economic Hardship Reporting Project (EHRP).

The bright burning petty
consolation of the US Air Force
screeches through Labor Day sky.
I was born on American Labor Day
which means I am almost a worker
or was once a worker and now am a brief
distraction, a comfortable misdirection
from the point. I was almost born on American
Labor Day, though my mother was in labor
on American Labor Day, Here’s a brief
distraction: when they invented American
Labor Day they invented the half-time show
in the same meeting. Here’s a petty
consolation: every Labor Day while you
celebrate the overtime you aren’t getting
at the job you don’t have, I celebrate
being alive. Here’s a brief distraction;
on the day I was born a fried chicken
restaurant burned to the ground killing
twenty seven diners. They say when Jesus
was born there was a star. It’s all the same,
as long as something burns brightly,
as long as Parsons, Spies, Fischer, Engel, Lingg and
Schwab are disappeared into the nineteenth
century, overlooked by the brightness of
F/A-18 Super Hornets, meshing perfectly
with the clear blue sky.