Labor Day: Cleveland Airshow

The following poem by Brendan Joyce was published in partnership with the Economic Hardship Reporting Project (EHRP).

The bright burning little
comfort of the US Air Force
screams through the sky on Labor Day.
I was born on Labor Day in the United States
which means i’m almost a worker
or was once a laborer and am now a short
distraction, a comfortable deception
from the point. I was almost born on American
Labor Day, even though my mother was in labor
on American Labor Day, Here’s a quick
distraction: when they invented america
On Labor Day they invented the halftime show
in the same meeting. Here is a trifle
comfort: every Labor Day while you
Celebrate the overtime you don’t get
at the job you don’t have, I celebrate
to be alive. Here is a short diversion;
on the day i was born a fried chicken
restaurant burned down with fatal outcome
twenty-seven dinners. They say that 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 disappeared in the nineteenth century
century, overlooked by the brightness of
F/A-18 Super Hornets, perfect fit
with the clear blue sky.