I’m not exceptionally old,
but I feel like I’ve met all the types
of people there are to meet.
I sit in this training room and
look around at all these faces
I’ve seen before. There’s the loud Italian
girl, she has so much to say, the young wanna-be druggie boy
(oh he’s just so mysterious), a mother beyond
her prime, an elder who should just retire,
a man roaring about his joyous divorce,
two gossipers at my table – trying to figure out
why I didn’t talk for the first week but now choose to
ask and prod at topics less discussed (I might be at this job
longer than I hoped), a girl with a pinched nose whose mother
never yelled at her, another with tattoos and opinions because
she “sometimes goes out for drinks with friends” and other times
makes comments just to look out the corner of her eye to see if
anyone still cares, and of course someone gives her that attention she craves,
there’s a man with a bald head, quite but pretentious, another with military boots
who drives his motorcycle into work and talks about
how he was a barber, one trainer loud and old and
counting the minutes until her smoke break,
another loud and young, who “hates having the serious talks,
but they have to be had,” and a little queer human resources
man who doesn’t come around much, an old mail room man,
who I’ve never heard spoke, a security guard who focused too much on what
you see above the desk line, and all
their doubles and triples, and me – watching and biding my time.
—————————————-
Old trees and iron,
Take me where you took them all,
I’ll breathe in and love.
