NaPoWriMo #7: A Skyscraper, not Tripoli

A Skyscraper, not Tripoli

The windows, papered over for protection,

are not partial walls riddled with bullets
from decades of ham-fisted management,
some distant status quo that exhausts itself before its time.
The windows, papered over in privacy

hiding human resources and boxes of discount tissue.
These are vestiges of an economy that trips
over and over again to show just how far we've come
because we don't have riddled walls.
And as war criminals bang their fists on an empty podium

calling out to supporters to kill their own,
I walk past the papered reflection knowing that
behind that protection my own are numbered,
where the pounding hands of upper management
are letting us go, calling it aworkforcereduction,
notaneasychoice, as a nodding head you've never met
confirms what we've known to be true all this time –
that the status quo had exhausted itself and now it's time.
So we all sit together, sharing a worry for the next one

to be snatched up, and by the time they come to lead
her away, everyone cries because it's her birthday today,
and as she walks to her car holding a potted plant and a severance check
I keep looking at that papered over reflection
and replaying the news report about a soldier in Libya
who jumped from his plane instead of bombing his own.

I haven't had the courage to walk out from that job I hate
that makes me weigh tragedy against being unfortunate
or put upon, but I still can't escape that it feels good
to picture it like our papered windows are those riddled walls,
that we share a revolutionary vitriol deep in our bellies
and someday we'll make our demands. But we're foolish.
So I gather my coat, take the skyway to my car,

start it up and take off for a quiet home life.
The peaceniks on Franklin Avenue are just starting to gather,
and I wait idle as an old man waves two flags – half peace, half American –
as he looks with trepidation as they won't unfurl to polar ends,
nothing that the pull of a cord won't fix.