Three Pieces of Advice to New Dishwashers at the Eldorado Hotel

.........................................................


It is easier if you can be friendly
to the face of the embittered French-Canadian
(with the gotee)
who owns you.
Do not tell him you are a poet:
once
he was a poet too.
Smile and say - Absolutely! Right away!
(Inside your head you can
sentence him to fifty years hard labour
in the stone mines.
It helps.)
At any rate, after a month he will stop
making you scrub the ceiling
and the grungy wall behind the deep-fryer.
He will,
I promie,
stop laughing when you burn yourself.

Sometimes it is easier if you can be angry.
Mopping the long linoleum floor
at midnight
when your hair is thick and wet with
steam and sweat and grease,
it is easier
if you can hate him.
Or someone.
Anyone, to be honest, to whom
you can direct the thought,
"I'll show that so-and-so
I will get out."

(It is easier still
if that is true.)