Green Peas at Stake

In the office (Dew Drop 23)

In the Office

For no sentimental reason,
clichés hang on tongues' clothesline,
and deals begin with
a phone call for "moneys to be made."
The boss, a walking talking gunner
with a blind bat's shot in the dark. Still,
his romance with greed and
rhythm--cool as lemonade on a hot day,
he calls it-- is feeding on a small scale,
while the steno, cracking her knuckles,
wonders who started the jam sessions
for the management or if the experience
of the tar-dipped character was ever tested.
A message obscure: "Don't allude
to what‘s there; play your hand right."
Familiar faces stacked behind
computer screens wish to unravel
duplicity's skein, but they can only shift,
drift, and dream of five o'clock, hoping
the ogre does not short their wiring as
the steno grieves the waste of
her thirty-sixth summer.