The Office
Keyboards slork and chirrup their way
through diets of words. The striped cough of the printer
punctuates the settling of sludge-mugs on the
woodskim tops. Everything has its
secret grammar. Voices skit and burr
on phatic tides; the cobbler’s sigh imprints
the damped floor and a phone makes the sound
of a bird. I don’t know which one. We do not have names
for birds in here. You can bring the name of a bird
in from outside, if you like. You can bring its call
on your ringtone, you can bring
the possibility of a bird. You can bring it on the chance
of a call from your letting agent or lover.
It can trill in your pocket. No-one cares.
Tom Sastry is a bureaucrat and occasional human. He writes poetry and short fiction.