When I began ordering new books for this project, Jim Daniels's Punching Out was one of the first to arrive. I decided to flip it open and read a poem or two. In about an hour, I had finished it and ordered two more of his books. I love a good work poem, and Punching Out is an entire book of good work poems. In honor of that, I decided to write one of my own work poems, but I've already mined so much of my work in retail, and I've recently written a poem or two about my days delivering newspapers, and working with kids. But I'd completely neglected the first job I took when I moved back to Cape Cod after a single semester of college. So, here's that poem. Sweeping Out
Adam Stone My mother knows all the wrong people to help me find work Before her real estate agent promotes me to manager of touristcentric alcohol distribution she sends me to her coworker's husband's penthouse office above a bagel shop She knows i hate telemarketers Praise the age of caller id and answering machines I just don't enjoy talking to depressed avatars of products nobody believes in So she refers to it as a call center My job is justified thusly Tourists visit a resort sign up for a free weekend giving out their names and phone numbers to a prick The prick gives the numbers to us We call everyone who enters Everybody wins A free weekend of listening to people trying to sell you timeshare four hours a day Jennifer is my trainer Forty-broken but with permanent smile Excited that i am eighteen and speak like an authorative uncle I get five confirmed appointments before our dinner break That's extraordinary she tells me and maybe everybody I don't know We eat dinner in the main office Finally the real boss My mother's coworker's spouse royal wes himself over to his desk to give us an inspirational speech I don't remember his five points of success or his tips on how to be promoted quickly or even what would be considered a promotion I only remember how he swept his arms across his desk knocking over every piece of paper before turning to jennifer and telling her to pick it up I remember how she smiled as she picked up his deliberate mess I remember the other middle aged men and women gasping How their bodies splashed back to the walls or the knees behind them I remember laughing Not at jennifer but at this sad paunch of my mother's coworkers eventually-to-be-exed spouse I said goodbye to jennifer and someone whose name i will never remember and swept my arms across my own cubicle Knocking all of my papers in the trash And I took the trashbag with me as i drove away forever
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