corner office
I lean out to feel the sky
the way it gasps
throughout its cloud-pocked expanse
below me, beneath the sidewalks
insects survive
more graceful in the dirt
than we will ever be.
I drag my weight over sidewalks
on days that are not my own,
watching birds up in that sky
their minds on currents and insects
mating and nesting
the loss gets so apparent
that my time takes on flavor
salted, metallic, and final
it’s every button on every telephone
every machine
it’s the dead pens on my desk
it’s what they’re serving downstairs for lunch
again the telephones — this time their ringing
red exclamation marks and digital paper clips
beside subject headings
it also tastes like
the bad coffee
that I cram down my throat in lumps.
the varying degrees of activity
stripped of all importance
lay white and cold
like sidewalks
within it all, of course,
shards of love
and life, flickering
compensation
flaps through sky
plans in dirt
I was made for this purpose
I was made to discover beauty and rescue it
from the strongholds of blind ambition.
