so.

you’re back on the clock.

you’d forgotten
how to manage this.

things to relearn,
things to know:

once back on the clock
you want to be off the clock,
almost more than you
want and need the money
alloted to you by the clock.

everything 
ends up on the clock.

you curse the traffic on 
the way in more
than you curse it on 
the way home because 
the clock is taking notice
and brain and heart notwithstanding
it is counting money and pain
while you chafe there
in your car. 

once there everyone is friendly
and kind and it almost 
matters more than 
the clock.

almost.

you carry the clock
in a pocket
you didn’t know you had
in your brain.
you’ve heard it will  shift
and end up close to your heart.

people at work talk like
that’s where they keep theirs,
but watch them at day’s end
and see how fast they run
to the cars. their hearts
somehow slow down as they run,
their hearts somehow expanding,
beating bigger, like they have 
more room; as if the clock pocket
that was stuffed in next to them 
has opened.

no matter how large
the relief on payday
feels, it will never feel
like enough
to make you comfortable
living with that everlasting clock. 

you’re back on the clock
as if you never left.
as if you’d forgotten
how to manage this,
how to live like this
until you die like this.

Bored with the couch
and the desktop,
bored with this particular
slant of light
this particular
winter morning,
I decide to work today
from the locally owned
coffeehouse.

This morning,
reassuringly,
there is obscure
electronic
music
in the air here.
I don’t know dubstep
from dimbulb,
but I do know  

this means
I won’t need to
think past something
I will be compelled to analyze,
like a folk song’s picking pattern
or a well turned lyric,
just to get work done.

Instead
there’s a completely reasonable
amount of squealing and skronking
and screwy rhythms,  
stuff I don’t care enough about
to dissect and be distracted by.

Hustle myself to a table
past two poets,
five bloggers, a rare G+
user of undetermined utility,
and one old cat
surfing for info on bedbugs.

As is the tribe’s custom,
the badge of the white Apple
glows everywhere.

I crack open the laptop
and begin —
a perfunctory spreadsheet
for my perfunctory consulting business,
a half-done poem,
a training manual in progress —
all on the screen at once.

I plunge in
to all of it at once
(so really, I plunge all the way
into nothing at all)

but not before noting
(internally of course, 
as none of the staff here
will care)

how much I love my locally owned coffee shop
and its dedication to not being
a pleasant place to get work done.
It’s good for my work ethic.
It’s good for training my focus.
It’s good for not distracting me
with eclectic atmosphere
or customers:  here there are
nothing but the semi-employed 
hoping the furious typing and surfing
gets them somewhere
else.

It’s almost the same 
as having an actual office
to go to once again.

Connecticut driving means
crossing many city lines,
passing many signs that say

“Welcome To The City Of (Your Name Here).”
Whatever line you cross,
always one view from the driver’s seat:

a lot of empty mills.
A lot of empty cubicles.
A lot of emptied mills

that were filled for a while with cubicles
and now all are empty again.
Without the signs to correct me

you’d think you were in
Emptyville for
three hours straight,

except for the roads not being empty,
ever.  The whole state
is going somewhere,

downhill, uphill,
rolling over lines and passing those signs
that say “Welcome To Fill In The Blank.”

There’s a networking event
for out of work professionals in every town.
All those “Hello My Name Is…” name tags

on smart blouses
and sharp lapels,
all those resumes that say,

“Seasoned financial services professional with experience
in all aspects of the industry. Driven by results,
solid leader and team player; versatile;

able to hit the ground running.” All those eyes
on the eyes of the people behind the tables,
taking those resumes under consideration.

Later, all those name tags crumpled
on the floors of all those
once-affordable cars

holding just enough expensive gas
for the drive back across
city lines, past city signs —

“Welcome To Once Upon A Time,
Welcome To Just Passing Through.”
Uphill, downhill, north, south,
driving through Connecticut,

past all those refurbished mills
and the echoing cubicle farms
with the department nameplates on the walls:

“Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable,
Legal,
Human Resources.”

If you find yourself in Connecticut
in an empty office building, it’s perfectly OK
to switch those signs around

if you’re so inclined; it’s not like anyone
who comes here after you
is going to know the difference.

standing up swiftly
after the shouting
was over

he fell to the floor

said

I feel like the crutch
discarded
after the miracle cure

then
turned
fractal
into himself
the equations within
inadequate
for explaining the process
but suited
for description
of its appearance
circling methodically in
upon his cry of

of what use am i now?

such violent
classrooms to be opened
such ferocious
hardware to be mastered

he broke often
trying the locks

he swelled
and atrophied
healed crooked
healed

broke again

more and more arthritic
always reflexive
he stumbled in predictable ways

what use am I?

clumsy

typical
of a generation
unused to a
troubled path

kept himself
alive without
thriving

a Friday full of longing
found him
thinking of the days
when he was
support
for the limping of others
wondering
if it was still worth learning
to live with a limp himself
to spin on
not knowing
his use

the crutch eventually
rotted into the ground
and left no trace
under the spiral arms
of galaxies
unsympathetic
to such trivia

The first words
out of her mouth
are,

“why are you working on Thanksgiving?”

and I hold my tongue
instead of saying,

“why are you shopping on Thanksgiving?”

Later in the call
(which is far longer
than our four minute standard
and I’ll probably get written up for it)
she tells me

her son’s moved out of state
to be with his girlfriend
who has a huge chest
and do I think the XL or the 1X
would be a better fit?  I say

I would go with the 1X
based on her description,

and she says she also has a huge chest
and both her sons were always
tit clutchers, and she’s had long talks
with the girlfriend about that.

OK, I say,
and we’re running a special today,

as a thank you you can have
another one or two items
at 15% off,

she declines at first but then
goes silent,

I can hear the pages flipping,
she’s looking for something else to buy,
a perfect gift,
mentions the other son
doesn’t talk to her at all,

I take another bite
of the cold apple pie
the company’s so thoughtfully provided,
and I’ll be damned
if I hurry her along.

When you’re
a hammer, he said to me,
everything looks like a nail,
and that’s how you approach
every problem:
sometimes you drive it in,
sometimes you pull it out.

I wish, a lot of the time, he said,
that I’d been born
a precision screwdriver.
I wish I’d been made for details,
been a writer like you.  But I wasn’t.
I was a hammer. I did
framing twenty years,
had my own business the last ten.
I slammed
and yanked and banged my thumb
a lot.  I never did the painting
and wallpapering, though I did drywall
when I had to,
never liked having to finish things
the way others wanted them, I figured
that was their job.

You, he said, you got
to do all the cool stuff,  you got
to write and travel,
make stuff up, fine tune
and change things
a little bit here and there.
 
No complaints,
he said, I just wonder sometimes
what it would have been like,
so what’s it like?

And the Hammer
slapped me on the back

as I peeled the label
off the bottle
and studied
my nervous,
unmarked hands.

he’s getting down to work this morning
but daydreaming about
Pet Rocks

how some guy made
a million bucks
selling rocks
in cardboard boxes
with a little straw
and an owner’s manual inside

how they sold out

and how some people refused
to buy them and just picked up
rocks where they were
and put them in boxes
and called them pet rocks
and others sold knockoffs
that had little googly eyes
hot glued to them and those
sold well too

but the point was
everyone had a pet rock
and called them pet rocks
and cared for their pet rocks
and they were all just rocks
but more than one person
got rich anyway

he’s thinking about Pet Rocks
while folding the T-shirts
on his kitchen table
packing them in boxes
shipping them out
never even bothering to read
the slogans of the minute
that he silkscreened on the shirts
last night after midnight