O new girl at the office!
How many young girls I’ve watched come and go afore ye
in their itty-bitty Charlie’s Angels t-shirts, the shit
brown trim around the neck and sleeves
like donkeys’ halos, and O!
shiny tennis shoes with soles sprongy
as bubble baths. How the body
glitter settles in the creases of your eyelids like electric sand!
You are a whirling calliope of daisiness, new girl at the office!
O new girl at the office, I pity you sitting
at the usually-empty desk with nothing
but salt and sporks in your drawers!
Lo! Nary a pencil with which to write how much
you hate it here, over and over, in Spanish,
French or whatever language you studied in high school.
Nary a clock around to show how time’s passing
slower than the black
Costclub coffee
in the pot
evap-
orat-
ing.
O new girl at the office!
By the time I learn your name you will be
gone so I will call you Yorbalinda!
Oh Yorbalinda! You are too pink
for these beige walls. And by the time
I hear you groan through the partition,
groan to no one in particular, “God,
it’s so quiet in here!”
you will already be fading like strawberry perfume
from the stale air around us.
Run, Yorbalinda, run!
As fast as you can!
And don’t look back!
Home! to your friends with patchwork skirts over their bell bottom jeans
and tight Space 1999 ski jackets.
Home! to your music going dooosha-dooosha-dooosha-dooosha.
Turn it up loud for us, Yorbalinda. We,
who are beyond boredom and already
dead, wish you well
at the next temp job,
where you’ll forget
all our names, Yorbalinda,
but our blank, hollow eyes
will haunt you ever more.