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Beans and Potatoes

Seventeen years on the graveyard shift
Retetitive work leaves her hands in pain
Swollen are her feet, fifty hours a week
leaves her body drained
Week to week pays of nothing more than minimum wage
Making ends meet is a constant strain
Beans and potatoes
All she has to show for her pain

A cigarette on her midnight break
As every muscle continues to ache
Knowing when arriving home her work is never done....
Wake the kids, rush them to school
Only then the real work has begun.
Grabs her pail to tend the garden crop
In the Kentucky mud, only the best potatoes she will shop
Put the beans on the stove, peel the potatoes,
Feed the children, tuck them into bed
Only then her work will stop

Every hour spent in the garden, and on the hard concrete factory floor
Every miracle made with the monthly bills
Are moments closer to lives her children will never endure
No money saved for a rainy day, nor money for college
Only by example she can lead, so each child knows
To want more out of their lives than beans and potatoes

poem by Carl Leiland
Added by Poetry Lover
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