"Voice 'Round the Corner"

You are the most selfish man I know,
what about your soul, to which gods will it go?
She’s having another “bad day,” talking to--
The most selfish man I know!

I’m dialing the bossman; low whisper-request.
He’ll be down soon, supposedly knowing
how to deal with these explosions.
It really boils down to presence;
she always seems to know when he’s coming,
no matter what. She howls, throws her boxes,
rivulets of possibly unmedicated words
streaming down her white face—
but the minute bossman’s down

it stops

He waits, five minutes, ten minutes,
interrogating me—what did I hear?
What started it?
The answers are always the same:
a voice full of other voices,
profanity, names spewed in acid,
objects departing their customary places
via her hands, and, no, I don’t know
what started it, though I have suspicions.
I don’t share those anymore.

He looks over his nose, over the cubicle wall
at the slammed door (though he wasn’t here for it).
The assistant director circles,
waiting to see the chaos start up,
but never timing it right.
I seem to be the only that can do that.

They’ll go back up, the silence in her office more
disconcerting than the sudden torrent of obscenity and
banging staplers, thrown ink-stamps and
accusations that bellow from her office,
that hurry my fingers back to the phone,
breath held, to see which will happen first: her descent, or his.

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11.16.05
MWL