Construction Work or Picnicking

You can’t have both, the lunch break
Photograph of Mohicans
Perched like birds on a girder

Notwithstanding. Grandstanding
For a news photographer
Doesn’t count as picnicking.

Picnicking is the result
Of work made antithesis
Of work, effortless bounty.

You can sing songs while you work
And write lyrics for picnics,
But whether or not you packed

The hamper yourself, picnics
Aren’t enduring constructions,
And construction’s no picnic.

This is what strands you halfway
Between cows digesting cud
And termites raising towers.

It’s why you’re all half-hearted.
It’s why you hate to have ants
Show up for work at picnics.