Sometimes a girl just has had enough…
Poem for My Printer: A Rant
Oh, I think I can imagine who you were,
in a former incarnation. Ah! Wife cheater, thief,
slow driver in the fast lane! You, who would act
as though you didn’t see the “13 Items or Less” sign
on a Saturday afternoon at Kroger; who would buy
your wife an iron for Christmas; who would pay
your newpaper carrier late and with a bad check.
Did you once push aside an elderly lady at the airport,
not because you were late for your plane, but because you
really wanted an Orange Julius? How about
trying on new shoes when your feet were smelly? And
let’s not forget the chocolates that you nibbled a corner of
and returned to the box if they were nougat.
And now, here you are…No corporate,
climate-controlled office for you, no restful, quiet church
office. This life, although it may be mercifully short,
will be spent in the company of sticky-handed children,
cats who like the heat you generate, adults who have no patience
with your need for fresh ink and a supply of quality paper.
Perhaps you feel I should apologize
for yanking your plug, turning you on your side,
and banging your smooth grey casing on the desk to remove
the Lego lodged in your guts, or
for the electrical tape that adorns, for no good reason, one side
of your printer-cartridge lift-top. Perhaps, then, you
should remember the Valentine cards
you didn’t send, the cars you egged
on prom night, all those steaming piles
of shit you let your gummy-eyed poodle leave
on someone else’s lawn.
