Work Hurts by Jeff Bagato

 

It doesn’t hurt to walk into an office
as a temp when they don’t know why
you’re there—somehow it’s expected
that at the Post Office they’d be lost
in the bureaucratic chain—just give
me a corner desk to hide in and I’ll
survive this, too, something to type
now and then between rummaging drawers
of some absent stranger’s desk—
would I have any shame? These
quarters will go unmissed,
and anything else I can touch—
it’s not the work or the waiting
but the agony of following orders
from people so much more
stupid than you can believe