Trainer

Christ, I want to put other voices
into the heads of these people:
put a strong woman’s voice into
the head of the jock at the back table,

the one who won’t talk, who juggles his facade
of listening to me with his fascination
with the Blackberry; make that redhead next to him
do more than nod, switch out her monosyllables

for the chirp of the little guy at the front of the room
who has a story for every thought anyone utters,
and they’re off point, every last one; because I think
she’s with me and I want to know more about her, how she thinks,

what she has to say about work and how it goes for her
in meetings where it’s always like this, with the loudmouths
doing all the talking or the ones whose attitudes come through
without saying a word and whose attitudes color the atmosphere

in this breakout space with no room to do more
than sit nearly in each other’s laps and take the measure
of how the middle aged trainer is handling the pressure
of the long silences, of them sitting on their hands

every time I ask a question designed to get at something,
how it is for them, do they get what they need
at work, do they let their employees speak up, ask them
who they are, how they are, what they want, what they need.

The whole world loathes a trainer. We even loathe ourselves: too often
we bore ourselves with what we have to say. We’d rather
shake them, walk out when they’re silent,
toss a slide into the regulation Powerpoint

that suggests that the key to good leadership is to shut up and pay attention
to what’s around them, get to know their people
as if they were people instead of collections of aggravations —
which of course, is just how I see them right now: just faces, types, full of disdain

for the guy asking them how they think and feel,
trying to get them to turn to each other and say, “Yes, I hear you,
and it’s that way for me too — we need to talk more and remember
who we are no matter how we dress or talk.” I earn my living this way

and there are days I hate it as much as I hate anything
I have to do: comfort the unwilling, dance for the blind,
make a monkey of myself to get them laughing; I’m just another clown here,
and I don’t know how to get out of it,

to start being worthy of the role,
to start acting like I really mean it when I say
we have to be more to each other,
we have to give a shit about each other.