an ounce of might

my schoolside custodian's got many an ounce of might. he was an athlete, a mechanic, big in the biceps and then on in the gut. an engineer, they call him, but he professes not to know anything so fancy as all that. i'm sure we don't - not none of us - believe him.

what autism he has! what beautiful dyslexia. what an intricate and nuanced understanding of the world around him, that he draws around us all. and he's perfectly cordial, even lacking awareness, trudging khaki-green cargo-pants thunk down the hallowest halls. he told me in detail all about the inseam and about his blue polo shirts, all identicalized, too.

hip holsters, two smartphones, and a utility belt complete with knife. an outlet tester, two cases of rachets, an everpresent bottle of diet coke. some zipties, some trashbags, some pushcarts, some loading dock that he sits upon and eats his microwave'd popping corn.

and he loves to waste time playing games on his phone, when he's not writing poetry sat at his desk alone. photographed wide-rule, mispellings' scrawl, taking in a marvel at the thrill of it all. at six in the morning, or quarter of, he comes in, flashing sunrise from the roof and priming ripe to begin.

the dumpster drives him, death by trash, with a spray bottle anchoring workshoes to ground. and he's living as greatmuch as any of us do, none encumbered by wet floor signs and paper towel rolls carpeting a cockroach. only when the cockroach is in the girls' bathroom, and he can't get in because they won't stop rubberneck screaming...only then is it a problem. but mr gene is genial, you see, so he waits, and he watches, and he bears as much mischief as we all might be able.

and all of this means nothing - why shouldn't he have a personality? why shouldn't anyone who works at an elementary school be wonderfully quirky and horribly hateful to lose, to miss, to forget to ever to see?

it's aspirational, is what it is. it's magnificently mundane and mundanely magnificent, is what it is. it's a bleeding ounce of burning vitality, is what it is. it's a man who answers scam calls in a hokey voice and writes a eulogy for dead mice in the title i specialists' room, is what it is.

it's wonderful. it's plumb terrific. it's crazy. it's divine.

that's all; i just wanted to say that. i didn't rhyme about, i didn't ask a plaintive question, i didn't pose to solve a world of good. but i liked to know what i knew about him, and it's funny how little that still somehow is.