Workwear

I am not a laborer.

I know this.

I am the one who draws the thing

someone else builds.

But given the choice

between the boardroom and the shop floor

I will take the shop floor

every time —

the smell of it,

the noise,

the honest relationship

between a hand and a material.

So I dress for where I want to be.

Coveralls. Handkerchief. Closed-toe shoes.

Moholy-Nagy did the same —

artist in mechanic’s clothes,

not fooling anyone,

making a statement anyway.

The costume is not a lie.

It is a declaration:

I am on the side of making,

of the callus and the sawdust,

of the thing that exists

when you are done.

And somewhere in the wearing,

in the mending and the measuring

and the project that takes

three times as long as you thought —

you stop performing

and just become

the person

in the coveralls.