Job Application

 

Empty boxes, white paper command me
to chop my life into bite size pieces.
I enter name, address, current position.

Words float in rectangular tanks, revealing nothing about
chair-throwing bosses, smoking in parking lots, Hawaiian Shirt Day.
Black letters dare the eye to believe.

List prior positions in descending order.
I put down "beet roller" and describe long hours
with bamboo poles, coaxing recalcitrant vegetables.

"Jellyfish farmer"--why not. I left when they filled in the bay.
Brass elevators glide on glass boxes where
my little beauties once pulsated.

Give an example of working with a team. But I was the star!
My tapir-wrangling made the show. Our troupe played towns under 10,000.
References? Dead, moved, forgotten. I fill margins with

office romance details, real and imaginary, and provide a sample
doodle, with analysis, attaching
extra sheets as necessary.

 

--Elise Bowditch

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