words

i’ve never quite understood
the seriousness that most people inhabit
at work.

it is as if through their morning ritual
they are imbued with this
somber weight
that must be carried
through the long arduous hours.

and by the simple act
of tucking in a shirt
they are bound to some agreement
whereby you may be contracted
to share the burden
of their tone.

i wonder if architects,
when designing these floorplans,
imagine little, flat,
two-dimensional employees
drifting forever
through the blue hallways,
mingling momentarily
by the precise measurements
jutting from the walls,
ducking beneath notations
to fill paper cups with blue water,
or if they envisioned some modern,
aesthetically pleasing dungeon
whose chains and spiked instruments
have been replaced with the slow,
pulsing, painful squeeze
of the seriousness of work.

-S.C. Martinez