Strigilized

By the time I got home I was covered with a thin layer of sweat and the attendant layer of particulate crap. Working class hero is so hard to be. The darling of a particular class, I poured a pail of water over my head. Listened to some hard driving blues. Strigilis, currycomb, flesh-brush, scraper. In the museum at Janitor College, I'd forgotten, there was a display case filled with cleaning implements, and I'm sure I remember a strigil, a bronze piece with an engraved handle and a curved unsharpened working end, it looked like a gardening tool. Wooden ones would be easy, from any crook of branch, and probably Nero had one in gold. Living alone, a strigil would be nice to have, like a back-scratcher, to pre-clean myself before I poured a bucket of water over my head. I realize I could leave the ridge, I could go anywhere, I'm a Navy brat, I've always moved around, moving is not an issue. I love my job, so I'd probably just move to town, get an apartment, sell my truck, be a city person, get a bicycle. I could do that, not worry about firewood, have a thermostat. I can't survive another winter like the last. They'd find me fairly soon, because I'm part of a team that needs me, but I'd be frozen stiff as a icicle. "Poet Found On Ridge-Top Within Twenty Feet Of Home." I'd rather write a few more years. Fuck a bunch of parties, I'd rather be alone.