Realism at Work

and if they accuse us of demanding the impossible we can remind them what we do to accommodate their impossible demands

how we live in aging parents’ basements on friends’ couches in shelters on the streets to make it possible for us to work for less than rent

how we tirelessly arrange odd hours at second third jobs to make it possible to work on hours cut week to week

how we hound the dta office to make it possible for us to eat when they misplace a form and cut off our food stamps

how we sleep together on mattresses placed side-by-side on the floor to make it possible to sleep when we’ve run out of oil

we make these things possible and unions living wages everything they call impossible from our angle appears realistic