Modern Job

Photojournalism depicts a modern Job,

on the front page of the daily news,

haunched down in agony on earthquake rubble

in Kahramanmaras, grasping his beads

and his daughter’s cold, dead hand,

while nearby a mother buries her nested sons

in a deconstructed six-floor mausoleum

that once served as their loving home.

Six thousand miles away, I shudder

in horror and want to shoulder

their suffering, but I am easily distracted

and stuck sifting through

the petty melodramas that comprise

the modern workplace.