for Tom and Barbara

In the office the clicking keyboards are
tiny tin cups inmates rake across the bars,

my tie is a tourniquet, stops the bleeding,
assures nothing goes to my head,

Low Level Skin Management, a stalled
and scrambled title in an elegant font,

my secretary outside smoking two
weeks now sending signals to the others

in a hundred mile radius, my boss
makes me do all his work, what does he do…

The guy in the corner doesn’t know
I know he’s sending the fifth email today

to the secretary upstairs he’s been
stalking, that it’s documented in

HR, he might as well have a Lite-Brite
over there and stick glowing color pegs

in an outline of her body, maybe
everyone’s keystrokes should be monitored,

a modern version of the red dye tablets
in first grade revealing the poor brushers,

or the drops the neighbor put in his pool
that would expose the kid who might pee in it,

and now at eight-thirty comes Rebecca,
middle-aged and a little heavy,

dropped off by her boyfriend who kisses her
as if he’ll never see her again,

opens the car door for her, the heavy
doors of the building she floats through smiling

into the arena of pining hearts,
career by fate and lives by accident.

I remember a guy I worked for once
who told me after having his teeth cleaned

the hygienist gently held his face in
one hand and slowly kissed him on the mouth,

and I know he was telling the truth because
he was handsome, shy and always did.

I asked him if she was attractive and
he said very, I asked him what he did

and he said nothing, it made him nervous,
just said thank you after the kiss and left,

said thank you not for the kiss, but for the
cleaning, as if she had never kissed him,

and I thought, no hygienist ever kissed
me like that, or it’s been so long I can’t

remember the taste any better than
red dye. What would it be like to be kissed

like that? Not the kiss of death but the long
dwelling kiss of the admirer, the kiss

of the head hunter who sweeps you off of your feet
and carries you to your dream job behind

a door so thick and title so obscure
no one knows who you are or what you do,

where you watch the world from your high window
or edit your lifelong trail of mistakes

or write poetry or just dream all day
or close deals so sweet, each one sealed with a kiss.