The Personal Website of Steve McRoberts
Advocating ethics through empathy
& treading lightly upon the Earth
Poetry
Poetry
The Collected Poems of Steve McRoberts
The Collected Poems of Steve McRoberts
  The Janitor

My name is spelled Anonymous.
It's after time when I arrive.
My work is styled unglamorous
since nothing's pretty after five.

With toilet for a crystal-ball
I could read their inner bowels,
or directly learn their all
tracing prints from paper-towels.

But such methods I deplore
when all about me, loud and fast,
down the walls the details pour
and haunt the night to daily past.

I know each face and family
as well as weights of each new-born.
The living are revealed to me
By pictures, checks, and letters torn.

I read the memos, bottles, trash…
the perfume lingers with the sweat.
I sniff my way through dust and ash
and trace the day in silhouette.

A day of action lies in state:
each can's a coffin for the chaff
I empty, winnow, and collate,
then simply read the epitaph.

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