...In This Corner...

All The Men

in crisp blue dress shirts

oozing advice

"screen and announce all my calls"

"lie through your teeth for me"

handsfree headsets, peacock strut

"I AM IMPORTANT"

the assistants

all women

appear each one like ghosts - small and cowed

harried

desk equipment includes plastic pens with

stress chewed ends

The Blue Shirts watch the season opener baseball game

on the TV's in their cubes

the assistants sneak wistful glance as they quickly pass by like

worried mice

anxious to pleace, to silence

the rapid and shrill brrringBrrring of the phones jangling

incessantly insistent like the screams of newborn infants

demanding

everyone is abrupt

impatient

Their Time Is

...$o Preciou$...

and in this corner

the poet scribbles surreptitiously on patchwork post-its terrified

of the phones ringing, of being seen, noticed in documenting this disgrace, this shame

she is yet another in a long processiona of these

temporary

replaceable bodies

the poet forsees the future:

it will only end when

one

of these unfortunate assignees

is hungry and desperate enough

to stomach the stuffy air, the subservient atmosphere

All These Men

without these women

would have to

answer

their own phones

and hold up the entire sky

with their starched collars

all alone

.

.

.

~Faye Manning

[[..inProcess.Tu.11.Apr.2k..]]