Midweek Review
The Gold Standard
By Lynn Ockersz
As the first streaks of dawn turn into gold,
She’s at her post in the city’s shopping mall,
Sad-eyed, bent in two with age and work,
Wearily sweeping and mopping a vast expanse of floor,
And though her vision blurs with every broom stroke,
She dares not seek a break from these withering chores,
Lest she be seen as incapable of holding the fort,
And, therefore, needing to be replaced with no mercy shown,
But calling her a mere slave of today amounts to missing the point,
For, she and her fellow sufferers radiate the Dignity of Labour;
A gold standard about which econometrics is very much in the dark,
Since the Sweat on the Brows of Honest Toilers defies quantifying.