Feeding frenzy: a poem for my boss
There no answer in the sand,
or in the waves that rush up at my feet as I walk.
But I've come here to breath salty air
and seek the comfort of the ocean.
In the early morning hours Ocean City is a a tomb,
with only we few souls wandering its empty boardwalk,
the face of its concessions covered over
and their prizes hid.
With me vacating a job I nearly quit,
just another slave among slaves,
punching in and out,
sweating my brains away for an hourly wage.
We grumble in the lunch room about the boss,
blaming him for all of our ills:
he keeps us down, we say
with all the heartened vigor of budding communists,
though I have seen my bosses face at the end of day,
and his sore eyes searching out our faces as we leave.
He knows we plot against him,
and yet he struggles to keep his face unmoved.
He knows we have nothing to lose.
We can't be ruined by rumor.
We haven't staked our lives out in our jobs.
Even when the job is permanent, it is temporary,
one from which we plan to move
when fortune sails into our port
His job is another rung on a ladder
A reckless gamble he hopes he can cling to
Until he can grasp the next rung – and the next,
Each stumbling step taking total concentration.
Just why I think of him as I stroll
where water flaps at my feet rather an packaging peanuts,
thinking of him on his sofa with stomach pains
panicked over returning, controling us,
getting his next promotion,
filling in the blank spaces on his resume
each thick with images of us,
an sea of angry workers mocking him,
plotting against him, making that next rung slip
I bend, pick up sea shell, toss it back to the sea,
half wishing I had asked him to come south,
half glad he suffers as much as the rest of us,
hoping the next boss won’t be as bad,
as sea gulls swoop at the shell I tossed
thinking I am feeding them.