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We couldn’t say when it started exactly, the transformation.
Interoffice envelopes began arriving
with our names in fine calligraphy: that was an initial sign.
Then a young manager gave a presentation
using words like gouache and crescendo
and the bullet points on his overheads
were like icons from the Book of Kells.
Soon after, we stopped ordering platters wrapped in cellophane,
favoring delicate quiches instead, or an array of soups,
or sushi delivered by a tranquil gent
who set our conference table with a studied reverence.
Our divisional vice president cultivates orchids now,
our receptionist displays pots and pots of African violets.
We set aside days for cultural celebration
when the office is a panoply of turbans and kimonos,
kilts, saris, dirndls and dashikis.
Other days we all wear an item of like color, or white.
Sometimes a hush settles over the crowded cafeteria,
the cacophony dissolving into a great silence.
And just this morning, our companionable computers
booted up with the tinkling of Zen bells.
A message materialized on every screen:
We have gathered here today to engage in joyful livelihood.
Let it engage us entirely, that we may be enlightened and fulfilled.

The Triumph of Eros

In a bull market, a depression grips us.
We shamble to meetings with drooping heads,
we wear a plain and shapeless garb.

We are like monks, practicing custody of the eyes;
like nuns, shunning “particular” friendship.
Eros must be vanquished for the common good.
It says so, right here in the employee manual.

Perhaps Peg and Don haven’t read it
for I spied them today, necking in the copy room.
Peg will soon be fired,
if past experience repeats,
or one will be sent to Brussels,
the other to Albuquerque.
One way or another, the situation will be “handled.”

I worked once in an old loft building, plagued by mice.
We kept cats around to hunt them—
two neutered tabbies, fat, snoozy,
more unsexed than the drabbest of company drones.
Yet I came upon them one day, coupling on my boss’s desk,
rumbling and yowling in feline transport,
shedding all over his blotter and lawyerly files.

I shut the door and left them to their shameless offices.

Kate Bernadette Benedict is the author of Here from Away, a collection of poetry. She lives with John, her husband, and Oscar, a red tabby, in New York City, where she edits the online magazine Umbrella: A Journal of Poetry and Kindred Prose in a combination boudoir/office. Home Page: http://www.katebenedict.com/

Donna Dixon "Bird Cross"

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