2/20/2023
by Brian Eckert
I no longer have the energy to relax
I’m too tired to plan, reserve, & take a vacation
last Thursday I skipped a jazz performance
that I’d been looking forward to for weeks
so I could have dinner at five-thirty
and fall a-sleep in front of the TV
before the east coast evening news
came on at seven mountain time.
I’m too tired to wake up early
for sunrise chasing and
winter hiking.
The movies I want to watch
all put me to sleep before
anything exciting happens.
When I come home from
my morning job, I’m greasy
and tired from spending
seven 2 nine hours
standing, and
performing
my customer service character
who enjoys slinging bagels to
asshole skiers & tech dickheads
who treat me like
a vending machine.
I don’t know what
Fred Moten means
when he writes about
“the Undercommons”
because I never have time
to read the things I want,
but I certainly feel the gap
of the crushing classist chasm.
BRIAN ECKERT has worked as a bartender, farmhand, dishwasher, landscaper, gravedigger, cook, unlicensed forklift operator, and University Writing Center Fellow. Brian graduated from Case Western Reserve University with a BA in English before earning a Master’s of Liberal Arts (MLA) from Johns Hopkins University. He is currently seeking admission into a PhD program or a teaching position, while continuing work on a long poetry manuscript and working in restaurants.
Brian grew up in rural, northwest Indiana and will always consider himself a Midwesterner. He was diagnosed with leukemia in June of 2019, prior to his final semester of undergrad, but he continued classes while undergoing intensive chemotherapy and proceeded to start his Master’s degree the following year, in August 2020. This experience both informs and inspires his writing and research as he continues to struggle with leukemia and the after-effects of the chemotherapy.
Union Spring Literary Review 