Work Routine

Sitting in the bleach-blue glow
of the florescent lights, a worker
sits busy on his break listening hard
to the slowly paced stories his boss
tells with practiced accuracy.
He looks like a movie through
this window, flickering
in the sick light. And the glass
is glazed with tape and stains.

This is how images disappear.
The light goes bad, the glass turns
opaque. Your glasses are dirty
and so thick you can see your eyes
looking back in the reflection.
The air is so thick, your ears
can hear each other listening.
You hear the worker laugh
at the end of the boss’s story.
Now it’s time to work again
and you look back out on the world
with its images clunking
loosely back into place.