What Kind of Monster

What kind of monster spits a wad of gum in a urinal?
Blue. Brain-folded.  
Pregnant with identifying evidence. 
DNA. Marks from teeth  
that will long outlast the flesh. 
Because a yellow rubber glove with a hand inside
with the hand of an eternal spirit inside of both 
will have to fish that out of there. 
And scrub the whole thing down,  
porcelain and chrome, 
with a green sponge and  
the spray-bottle mist of 
chemicals known to cause central nervous system defects
if used without proper ventilation. 
My mom wasn’t embarrassed by the thought of me,
sixteen, walking around in no-name shoes, 
or denim with a counterfeit stitch-pattern  
across the back pockets, 
or working crappy jobs. 
I located the origin, formerly a mystery to me,  
of money. I mowed lawns and pulled weeds.
I harvested sweet corn and onions and radishes. 
I washed dishes and operated a deli slicer.  
I was a sad narcissus in a hairnet 
contemplating my reflection  
in a razor-sharp disk of stainless steel 
between slices of black forest ham. 
And I scrubbed countless elementary school toilets.
Chris, the head janitor, had some disabilities. 
But he wasn’t blind 
to student mockery or teacher patronage or my half-assed work.
He taught me something. 
He wasn’t literally Jesus, 
but he was meek and lowly 
and he descended below a few things, 
with a vacuum and a brown rag  
and a set of keys on a retractable chain. 
To make people feel safe and loved 
by emptying the trash cans 
and stocking the bathroom dispensers 
—gritty pink powdered hand soap;  
coarse brown paper towels— 
and by fishing wads of gum out of urinals.