Don't Quit Your Day Job

OFFICE WORK
Bren Simmers

Come cubicle talk and paper cuts,
the accruing interest of your inbox,
paid coffee breaks, benefits. Come
dressed appropriately for routine boredom
in sensible shoes. Come statistics on fax use
and FAQs. Poems that masquerade as memos,
Dear Ellen. Remember: October's your month
to wash the dishtowels in the staff room.
Come clients, who empty anger like a mailbag
onto your desk, expect you to say yes,
then thank them for their business.
Come five o'clock, a colleague counts --
only three years five months six days
until retirement, when you try to dream
in the off-hours. Remember there are loans to pay
come carpal tunnel, bad posture.
Come scissors with your name taped on them. 

from Bren Simmers's Night Gears
recommended by its well designed cover, on a table at AWP, 2012

DON'T QUIT YOUR DAY J​OB
Adam Stone

The tape dispenser is vacationing at your coworker's
parents' house The stapler is
toothless And the wite-out is now more
substantive than its plastic container Which is
fine as the printer hasn't been
operational in over a year

The most expensive hours are the ones
spent driving the back roads of
austerity because you don't want to pay the 
toll on the highway Nevermind its 
efficiency How it saves time and gas You can't see
the checkbook for the receipts

You have begun dreaming of
burned out light
bulbs so often that you are not entirely sure they can be
metaphorical 

There is a queue of customers
yearning to help
upgrade your computer by
committing acts of violence against the
relic that currently manages your inventory

There is an alien
alphabet of unopened letters marked
important

A novella of resumes
no one will ever read