2009-03-17
blues for aging mailroom clerks
1) I'm losing my nerve--as if I had any.
I've been wanting to ask her to have lunch with me. I often pop into her office to chat about books and music for a few minutes until my hair gets hot and my blood itchy and I have to leave. 2) The wheels of my handtruck get stuck between shadows of the perimeter. I am responsible for this flock of echoes feathering the corridor. I watch every woman recede and grow brighter before they are swallowed by the stairwell. This life is an episodic failure to break through. 3) A few of us were sheltering under the bus shelter after work, waiting for the bus. I muttered something like, "The sun is raining. And the rain is bright." "Almost sounds like a poem," she said. The bus arrived. I sat in the back. They avoided the empty seats around me. |