Agency Workers


We sit on New York-style chairs,
stainless steel on cloudgrey carpet.
Here in the heat and light
is our morning's ration of luxury
as the register fills up. Each name
a strengthening of each, conspirators together,
muffled from the cold.
Another working day. We are processed
away from our real selves
and into this working-person-thing.
There is no room for Elgar-like regrets;
we snatch a new day's scandal from The Sun.
Our driver arrives last, his own worries
hidden in his nonchalance.
Lizzie and Stella and Annie and Sue,
Maureen and Jean and Joan and Dot,
Carrie and Angie and Brenda and Cath,
Denise and Mary and Sal and me
hurtle along the country lanes
to where the factory waits beyond the fields.
Today's payment:
one entire sunrise, spanning
all the window of our racketing van.


• Pat Jourdan's latest collection is The Cast Iron Shore from Erbacce Press. Trained as an artist in Liverpool, she has spent many years in Ireland, which shows in her work.