Tonight's Poet Corner: Nine To Five Whimsy

Nine To Five Whimsy
by Belinda Roddie

Her daydreams are kept in the pockets
of her denim jacket, and occasionally,
she extracts one and pinches it between
her fingers as delicately as she would hold
a dragonfly wing or dandelion dust, all
lighting up from her cubicle window.

When work is over, she collects the
fragments of her coworkers' hopes
and fears, sweeping them into a bucket
to take home with her, so that she can
piece together a mosaic to share with
all of them at the Friday potluck, while
they're just happy that they can be
business casual instead of stiff and stern.

Her boss is tired of being lenient; he thinks
she's lost her way, her paperwork scattered,
her penmanship sloppy, her head lost in
the towers of imaginary nebulae in a universe
only she can see. Maybe she collects second
chances, too, and traps them in a mason jar.

Then, one evening, he means to
summon her to his office so he can finally
let her go, only to find that she's already let go,
and the cubicle is empty, and the daydreams
are scattered like dull coins across a keyboard
smiling with sad and crooked teeth.