I teach high school literature, but 

In the summer I don steel toe boots 

And work on a roof like my dead dad did. 

I do it for the money, but also to 

Carve callouses into my palms and put 

the satisfying ache of labour back in my back. 

While eating stale bologna sandwiches 

On a hot tin roof, Derrick heard that I wrote 

Poetry for fun so he called me a “pussy” 

(Not with his mouth, but with his eyes) 

so I dug one of my poems out of 

Pristine denim pockets–a nasty brute of a poem– 

and said, “Sic ‘em!” 

It pounced and clocked him so hard in the jaw that 

Two of his tobacco-tinted teeth 

fell to the tin roof with a dainty clink. 

The rest of Derrick plummeted to the ground in 

A long fall punctuated by a burly, flat thud. 

Same poem got dad, too.

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Originally from Buffalo, NY, Cody Adams currently teaches high school literature in Toronto, ON. His recent writing has appeared in Defenestration, Ekstasis Magazine, Cacti Fur, among others.