One Long Letter

Spring 2008

This is Madness.

I cut across the parking lot,

Past the M6 and the RSX Type S.

And I fight off being envious,

For a few minutes.

I am cadged in

By towering cabinets,

And White Out bottles.

I am imaginative

In my corner,

Cover over

The ceiling just fades away.

The High Heels are after you.

The Suits aren’t far behind.

Everything tainted in coffee,

And bleeding florescent lights.

They quietly appeal to me.

They tell me to run,

And not to look back.

I have so much more to offer

Than paper cuts and sticky notes.

I am brewing a book of poems.

Underlined, and capitalized.

And if the world were

One long letter,

Think I’d be written

In a different pen.

Think I’d be the one

Highlighted and deleted first.

Some balding Editor

Would send me to the Gallows

For standing out.

Trouble is:

I don’t know any other way to stand.

I walk down these halls

As quietly as possible.

Tuck my personality

Into my panties-

To make sure it doesn’t get out.

This is Madness.

I am gazing out at freeways

Some 2 or 4 lanes

Created so we can get away.

Buddhism guides my hand,

And fashions me a Ladybug rescuer

Saving all I can from the

Peril that awaits us all:

Dying at the window,

Trying to get out.

They gather at the water cooler,

And mock my efforts.

They, the machines that pay me

To be this way.

I am imaginative

In my corner,

Cover over

The ceiling just fades away