Dave Bonta's "Employment" is only four short lines, and it leaves a lot unsaid. The speaker begins with a dry, almost job-interview phrase, "I had some experience," but the experience turns out to be nothing like a résumé. It has "the breadth of the whole meadow," so it feels wide, open and natural rather than professional. The title makes us expect a job, and the poem quietly swaps that for something closer to a way of being alive in the world.
The second half moves to a burial, where "we were all kin." Death seems to bring everyone together as family. Then the poem narrows to the body: "my hole my hand my feet." With no punctuation, the words tumble out in a list. The speaker may be talking about a grave, or about the body as part of the earth, though the poem doesn't spell it out. The mood is calm, strange and a little humble, as if work, nature and death all belong to one shared ground.