All Employee Christmas Party
Must be my necktie squeezing sense
out of me, how I smile at cad,
buffoon, and pompous drone:
peace to all! I incline
with a courtier's gracious ease,
just slightly out of plumb,
already plotting my sidle
to the generous punch bowl
where a student ladling champagne
grades these proceedings low.
Or should I heave cornerward,
where a couple misfit friends jest
about the swirl of primary reds
and greens, suffocating haze
of mothball and perfume? I know
how easily I could wade between
that colleague and another's
third wife, and truly unfreeze
their becalmed chat. . . . Office banter
fights shoes that pinch, jewelry
swaying in the jazz of fond
emphasis. I'm all ornament here,
glittery and too fragile
for anything but the glaring display
amid the carcrash anecdotes
and refinanced mortgages. Thanks. G'night.
Stars mark my renewed apprenticeship
under the aspect of eternity
with cold air whose flurries
sting and daze my dulled eyes.
I begin to feel my sodden heart
swell with fellowship for one and all
once I'm shuffling the black ice homeward.
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