Here's a new one. I think it arose from my recent work frustration. I never actually had this job, but I knew a lot of people who did.


Basket Factory
By Michael S. Walker

At night
I dream of that basket factory
Of the swarms of Korean women
Doing lucrative piecework
Wearing diapers
So they would never have to leave
Their baskets
(Maybe piss ten dollars away)
I lasted two days
As a basket maker in training.
I was always poor at making things
The head basket man shook his basket head
Looked at me like I was retarded
(Not a good basket case)
He signed me out of there in triplicate
As I walked away my eyes glazed
My fingers stinging from rudiments of baskets
I looked back
The whole factory was a basket
A four-story picnic hamper
With little people in recessed windows
Whose job it seemed
Was to stand there frozen
And make sure I went away
Without taking any baskets.

copyright 2005 by Michael S. Walker