From one tiny room to another across town,
up and down oniony flights of August stairs,
I carry everything she asks me to, doing my best
to be as strong as her directing finger assumes me

to be. I’m good, I swagger when she asks if a break
is something I might need, and I wonder why I pretend.
What harm would a break do me, heaving and wheezing
as I am, despite my best efforts to hide and deceive?

She tucks a pillow under her arm, snatches a lamp
by its skinny-bent neck, and then is gone in a dash
down the stairs, leaving me alone among the boxes,
sweat sluicing through my ~~thinning~~ thinned hair.

What’s stopping me from resting a while now, here
in this cluttered stillness? Nothing but my inflated self.
Even just a few seconds would be a boon. But watch:
here I am squatting and lifting and stumbling my way

stairward again, arms full and vein-strained again,
determined as hell to prove (to whom? to whom?)
that I’m . . . what? Worthwhile? Somewhat still a man?
Praying each foot finds its step, I begin again the descent.

Helping My Niece Move in Brooklyn