At sixteen, I worked after high school hours
at a printing plant
that manufactured legal pads:
Yellow paper
stacked seven feet high
and leaning
as I slipped cardboard
between the pages,
then brushed red glue
up and down the stack.
No gloves: fingertips required
for the perfection of paper,
smoothing the exact rectangle.
Sluggish by 9 PM, the hands
would slide along suddenly sharp paper,
and gather slits thinner than the crevices
of the skin, hidden.
The glue would sting,
hands oozing
till both palms burned
at the punch clock.
at a printing plant
that manufactured legal pads:
Yellow paper
stacked seven feet high
and leaning
as I slipped cardboard
between the pages,
then brushed red glue
up and down the stack.
No gloves: fingertips required
for the perfection of paper,
smoothing the exact rectangle.
Sluggish by 9 PM, the hands
would slide along suddenly sharp paper,
and gather slits thinner than the crevices
of the skin, hidden.
The glue would sting,
hands oozing
till both palms burned
at the punch clock.
Ten years later, in law school,
I knew that every legal pad
was glued with the sting of hidden cuts,
that every open law book
was a pair of hands
upturned and burning.
I knew that every legal pad
was glued with the sting of hidden cuts,
that every open law book
was a pair of hands
upturned and burning.
>>this is a free Verse poem: Free verses refer to the different styles of poetry, wherein the poems do not carry a specific meter. Free verses are a poet's expressions, which are free from any rules or restrictions pertaining to the rhyme schemes of the poem.
TumugonBurahin>>the character in this poem refers to a man who experienced hardship and tend to appreciate it so long.
>>it is in the form of active voice.
>>it is a narrative poetry.
>>the theme of this poem focuses on the value of one's work that for some is non-sense without knowing that it is from a hardship bare hands.
>>the language used in this poem is ordinary as if in a conversational manner.