Psalm for the Unemployed

E. D. WATSON

April 19, 2020

o that you could put this poem in a sandwich

and eat it, that you could pour ketchup on it

and feed your kids. o that you could fold it 

like a bill and give it to your landlord, in lieu

of rent. o that I could bid the angels shake

the boughs and instead of words, pears came 

down, or coins or shoes. o that I could sing

your hands to work again, that the barkeeps 

pour their drinks again and tend the thresholds

of our leisure with measured cups of medicine

o that each latched door be opened, that empty

markets swell with wares, that women take up 

again their baskets to fill with flowers and bread, 

that bricklayers take up their spades and mend 

what’s gone tumbling into disrepair. o that the singers

howl their songs once more to rapt arenas—and you 

whoever you are—that you fall into bed again each night

bones ringing with a labor for which you’ve been paid.

o that you sigh in satisfaction before sleeping

for some good thing you’ve done, or made.

E. D. WATSON currently serves as the Poet-in-Residence for St. Mark's Church in San Marcos, Texas. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Texas State University and is pursuing certification at the Institute of Poetic Medicine. Her poems and stories have been published in a number of literary journals.