Gina Myers

Everybody’s working for the weekend
Unless you’re working for the Clampdown
The Jam sing, If we tell you that you got two days to live
Then don’t complain
John Maynard Keynes thought technology
Would advance enough to give us
A 15-hour workweek
And David Graeber pointed out that it probably has

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If you only worked 15 hours a week
What would you do with the rest of the time
Read, write, maybe keep a garden, prepare meals,
Talk to your neighbors, spend time with family,
Volunteer, exercise, and relax too
Basically feel fulfilled and connected to community

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The Twilight Zone episode “Time Enough at Last”
Gets to the heart of it / Henry Bemis wants to spend his time reading
But everyone gives him a hard time about it—his wife going as far
As crossing out all the words in a collection of poetry and taunting
him with it
During his lunch break at his job at a bank, he hides away in a vault
So no one can disturb him while he reads
When he emerges, he discovers
He is the lone survivor of a nuclear attack
He walks among the ruined world in despair
Before discovering all the books in the library are still intact
And he has all the time in the world to read uninterrupted
That is, until he stumbles—his glasses fall from his face and break
So he sits, surrounded by books, unable to see

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This is the fear: that we go through our lives unable to do
The things most important to us, everyone making demands of our
time
The working condition says there will never be time enough
Or as the Dead Kennedys say in “At My Job”:
Thank you for your service and a long career
Glad you gave us your best years

Gina Myers is the author of four books of poetry, including Works & Days (Radiator Press, 2025) and Some of the Times (Barrelhouse, 2020). She lives in Philadelphia where she co-edits the tiny with Ebs Sanders and Cul-de-sac of Blood with J †Johnson and Jaime Fountaine. Her excerpt was previously published in Works & Days (Radiator Press).