My Office

I’ve spent the last 10 years In other people’s offices Learning the alphabet of nods and eyebrows And pursed lips, straining for the purse Legs crossed in easy confidence Confident nervous gestures of assurance Approved blue suits And sudden dreamed-up lies to be delivered A net of thirty days and sixty days and ninety Insanely stretched past promise into years Next week, for certain Floated haphazardly on possibles As slight as handshakes, Firm as agreements of subjective verbs And got nowhere. This happy corner, sucking up hard-boiled eggs And polish hots The seidel sliding down the polished bar Clatter of friendly pool balls in the margin Not exactly somewhere, but a certain place. A regular’s dark hair and polished eyes Glow in the glasses lined before her face Smoking and berating the muzak “Jack, when you gonna get some country music?” “Country Charlie Pride?” Outside, it’s as bright as the important phone call I always pretend to await Setting up the lunch meeting at Stouffer’s Linen napkins and hope’s frozen green peas Set up another round of handshake laughter for the pictures “Hey sweet thing, when we gonna have that date?” The barmaid pouts a 1940s frown— It’s Arnie (reaching now to slap me on the back) A gleaming brazen polyester clown, Tuesday seems longer than the day before Since I began to organize my life around My Office I stay a little later every day. A little rain hangs fire in the clouds Next trip, I think I’ll bring the wife