Gloria Ogo
Ledger of Unseen Hands
for the ones whose names rarely cross a payroll
& for my mother
who cleaned motel rooms six-door keys deep,
folding towel swans no guest remembered
& my father, nightshift at the bottling plant,
palms glowing faint with phosphor when he kissed us awake
for Mrs. Salcedo in the cafeteria—
silver hairnet, hush-voiced Spanish lullabies to the beans,
who wrote tomorrow’s menu on steam
for Ernest the custodian
who replaced the flag rope at dawn,
said nothing of his stitched shoulder,
whistled Dizzy Gillespie to the mop bucket’s beat
& left chalk drawings on night-polished floors
only the morning janitor ever saw
ode to Grandpa’s index finger—
black-grease half-moon that traced carburetors
& taught me how engines remember heat
to Auntie Dez, undocumented angel of rooms 3-12B,
flipping patients, lifting words the nurses dropped,
whispering Psalms to a monitor’s blue pulse
praise the warehouse temp
who scribbles the weight of each box in a pocket Bible,
believing numbers are prayers when repeated enough
and the seamstress at the end of Line 4,
humming needle through denim twelve hours straight,
leaving secret cross-stitches under belt loops—
her way of signing the unseen
I tally them tonight:
all these unpaid gestures,
time-card blinks no scanner caught—
steam rising from a plastic dinner,
the why-are-you-still-awake kiss,
light left on in an empty hall
let this ledger be overtime,
back pay issued in breath & ink;
let it accrue interest in whatever ledger
heaven keeps for hands that never stop moving
while no one is looking.