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Tap Dancing on the 23^rd Floor

Marilee Pritchard

The day I started I told myself
I’d stay just long enough to finish out the year.
I hated copy machines purring
like fat Maltese cats, friendly at first,
then morphing into serial slashers,
the ambush of e-mails,
treachery of ID badges forbidding right of passage,
rest rooms etched with graffiti and
nuked cremains of chicken noodle soup
puddling in the drain.

Mostly, I hated every Friday afternoon
when my boss cut me out of the loop
and expected me to know everything,
“Think outside the box,” she said
(as if I could without permission just
vacate the 5 ft. designated space of my cubicle.)
I hated mission statements lofty as the Latin Credo, and
town hall meetings hosted by peppy millennials
whose aim was to inspire staged cheer
by making us wear funny party hats.
I read in The New York Times
our CEO was cutting out with
six million bucks while
we were getting loyalty pins for Christmas

When I started, I couldn’t predict
the future—the car always needing
new brakes, a husband’s death,
a son who couldn’t stay out of trouble,
so on I stayed for twenty years
unable to move forward.
Days repeated like seasons,
years took me by surprise.
I kept on dancing. I managed
to keep time, but I never
did learn to toe the line.

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