by Glen Armstrong

The rich sit in saunas. The rest of us work outdoors. Though the actual sweat is not exactly a commodity, the act of sweating, or more precisely the circumstance of sweating, is. Pores open, and the thick smell of success fills the air.

I worked in a shop when I was younger, cutting long bars of steel into clamps for carbide cutters. I was paid by the hour, and the sweat was incidental.

Bodies pass through portals, turnstiles and velvet ropes. They enter airplanes and sanctuaries where they are taught that Heaven is a gated community. All the while little round doors open in the skin. We travel some of the passage, and some of the passage is us.

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Glen Armstrong holds an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and teaches writing at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. He edits a poetry journal called Cruel Garters and has two current books of poems: Invisible Histories and The New Vaudeville. His work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Conduit, and Cream City Review.