Posted in Rituals

Agreeable

Posted on by tq1695

Alone and lonely –
sometimes identical twins
sometimes hunter and prey,
I had never been less lonely
or more alone
but I wasn’t – not quite
thank God for Nicole. I did.

Assistant manger. Second in charge. No 2,
profanely uncomplicated
once brusquely exonerating sloppiness, as “ fucking incompetence.”
Generosity and spite
she meant it
saying out loud what everybody thought – but wouldn’t dare.

Always sympathetic
always a full and fair hearing
always a promise to investigate
always a commitment to improve . . . . if proven.

Understanding forms as diamond from coal
slowly,
invisibly
incrementally –
years.
Nothing ever changed
not one thing
politicians and promises and campaigns
YES…. we can
but not now. But it could. It should. It would. It never did.
Smart –
win win – I left her office satisfied, she didn’t have to do anything.

 

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Author:

Most of my life has been spent on the bench, occasionally called into the game by extravagance or attenuation. Waiting has turned a loner into a recorder - nondescript and inconsequential, more not noticed than overlooked - the non-vantage point of children not yet considered old enough to understand. Orphaned Islands (Un)poetry is a lifetime of picking anecdotes up and not throwing them away. Stories collected like odds and ends placed in a box in the basement, the garage, the garden shed - uncertain as to what their use might be but knowing that one day there might be one.