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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
OFFICE PARTY: DISTAFF VIEW, by KAREN SWENSON Poet's Biography First Line: My mind is in the deep freeze Last Line: Stylized beyond reality. Subject(s): Facades; Marriage; Office Employees; Appearances; Weddings; Husbands; Wives; Clerks | |||
My mind is in the deep freeze wrapped in airtight plastic, and who would want my thoughts even glossed by hollandaise? I have left my face with the baby-sitter and come here sketched in eyebrow pencil, hesitant as a dress in basting stitches, to stand beside my husband - my name tag - and watch the shrimp pass by, boiled commas nodding at the edge of a crystal bowl. The accountant's wife splutters freckles between the pink-bowed lattice of her open-backed gown. Ambition, a pulled tendon, aches through conversations. And I, trying to make jelly-glass gestures into Dresden, am an extra, an appendix, my function organized out. Take me home, husband, and we'll make love on the oriental rug, laying a little ontology on another pattern stylized beyond reality. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...OFFICE POLITICS by WANDA COLEMAN WHITE, WHITE COLLARS by DENIS JOHNSON A DEATH AT THE OFFICE by TED KOOSER THIRTY BOB A WEEK by JOHN DAVIDSON THE CLERKS by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON THE CLERK by SCUDDER MIDDLETON IN RE ALFRED EMERY CATHIE by CHRISTOPHER DARLINGTON MORLEY |
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