MARILYN JOHNSON

I've had lovelier seasons.
The one with silver bracelets,
when I ran in the mountains.
The one with the singing baby.

The season I typed inventories
of car parts for dealerships -- sweating
the numbers, mocking myself as I churned
eighty words a minute
in a windowless room, muzak as
smooth as the receptionist's
voice, smoking drifting up to the fluorescence.
Manifold, alternator, differential,
modular units stacked in places
I'd never go.

I lived for five o'clock.
First bar to last call through the rings of Detroit.
Screeching backward off the highway ramp --
It's not illegal if you don't get caught! -- my friend
howling, my friend from the typing pool.

Were we smart girls passing through
dumb jobs, or pinned
by lassitude to our metal chairs?
Were we the quick brown fox,
or the lazy dog?
Trapped 'til the senior typist
hooded her machine.
What I learned about work filled an ashtray.

________________________________________________
This poem and another appeared in Field (#71).
Thanks to the editors for allowing these reprints.