Stuck In “The Office”

The office is where
my young cousins and I
were shooed off to
whenever the restaurant
got too busy on a weekend
night after a ball game
that brought in hoards
of youth…not much older
than we were…for pizza
and pop, sometimes
the works of everything
out of the fountain, called
a “suicide.”

If we were not sent to
that office, we could get
run down by the teens
pouring into the hottest
restaurant in town, or
burnt by the busy pizza
paddles lifting those pies
in and out of the huge Bunn
ovens, or we could accidentally
trip a waitress carrying
trays full of drinks to
thirsty athletes or cheerleaders.

We always wanted
to be part of the action,
inside that office we could
hear the roar of voices,
the laughter, the excitement
of a world going on without us.
I wonder if that’s why
the appeal of being holed up
in an office as an adult seems
more like a prison than a
place that I really want to be.

 

 

About the Poet:
Lylanne Musselman is an award winning poet, playwright, and artist. Her work has appeared in Pank, Flying Island, The New Verse News, The Rusty Nail, So it Goes, Issue 3, among others, and many anthologies. Musselman is the author of three chapbooks, and she co-authored Company of Women: New and Selected Poems (Chatter House Press, 2013). Presently, she teaches writing at IUPUI, Ivy Tech Community College, and American National University.

 

Photo by Rudy and Peter SkitteriansRudy and Peter Skitterians.

 

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