By the Water-cooler
       

Apparently, we gather by the water-cooler
as the city, through blinds, vibrates with drills, ignor-
ing the ploughed-water sound of police launches on the river.
`Yes', we say, to some fellow water-cooler loiterer
— What weather! What peristalsis! — as if the water in the water-cooler
had distilled itself from the speckled condensation on the wing-mirrors
of ambulances. In the calm before
the fire alarm we seek solace in a tank of nothingness, in the temp sent to water
the plastic fern, from the domino-fall of box-files, computer error,
to dizziness at the vastness of America.
When the news breaks, percipient with sirens, we aver,
pale Romans at the spa
to gather by the water-cooler.

Copyright © 2010 Matthew Caley All rights reserved
from Apparently
Bloodaxe Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission