Two Poems by Anders Carlson-Wee
HIRED
The Grand Am’s window rolled down but it was too dark out to see in: a hand waved me over, a voice asked if I wanted to make some quick cash standing right where I was standing for the next ten minutes, simple as that. Just stand here? I said. Simple as the voice said, and the hand stretched out a twenty. It was weirdly humiliating, doing what I was already doing. Like being told to act natural on camera and sensing that who you are is failing to entertain. Ten minutes passed. Fifteen. Twenty. I’d never made so much in such little time, never been so nervous doing nothing. I kept needing the car to come back, some sign it was over: a horn, a gunshot, the rising pitch of oncoming sirens. I could accept I’d never know what I’d been used for, but I wanted proof it was finished.
