While You're Still Working

The freezer was humming its constant refrain

when my phone lit up on the cart,

and I knew the shape of goodbye by then—

the way love always falls apart.

Twenty minutes to closing, still in the vest,

still smelling like bleach and decay,

and the text was so clean, so compressed,

a goodbye delivered that way.

I kept sweeping the floor as it came,

kept moving the broom back and forth,

and the freezer kept humming the same,

indifferent to what I was worth.