Poem on the Occasion of a Weekly Staff Meeting

Across the deep eternal sky
a thousand changing shapes flit by,

i.e. clouds, or so I have always called them.
But how is it I have never

among my incessant coffee refills
and insectivorous travels

among the cubicles in search
of individual wrapped chocolates

and conversations asked you
if you in my heart detect

several as I do in yours
of the adorable qualities

of broken folding chairs?
Or why we build desired outcomes

on the spots where old ones stood?
I call this meeting to order:

item one let’s go to lunch and order
wild boar. Let’s have an old-world chat

about the original action items.
O fuck the fluting on the donuts!

I feel totally Anglo Saxon!
I want for once in my life to whip

around an actual halberd gleaming
in the sun and win

a great victory versus the air!
Here is my project update:

the file cabinet is watching
over the particles

safely asleep in a beam,
and nothing into our building

has at last so gently crashed
leaving us bored and fortunate.

I move our faces
around this highly polished table

to each other look
almost familiar

so let us slip into the light
blue sleeve this afternoon

so gracefully carries
the next few hours in

and together forget
what our great task is.

Matthew Zapruder, “Poem on the Occasion of a Weekly Staff Meeting” from Father’s Day. Copyright © 2019 by Matthew Zapruder. Reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org.

Source: Father’s Day