Swingline
You reign over my desktop
sleek&slate
only your hyper-readiness
your Slimfast body stuffed with steel
your old-boy-network
princely desire to
lord over my desk
cajole flowered folders
to unbloom into piles
high above you
even the clock ticks more evenly
under your glare
but you have no power over me
with your passive-aggressive
reminders of why I need you
you listen to me type
copy/paste *sigh*
backspace
I know you judge me
Hungry Gray Stapler
with your superpower
to shotgun-marry two papers
or ten never to separate again
unless four teeth pry them open
break the blessed union
once your savage hold
kept my words well ordered
rising action before climax
divorce decrees orderly
my poems from becoming paper airplanes
sleek&slate
only your hyper-readiness
your Slimfast body stuffed with steel
your old-boy-network
princely desire to
lord over my desk
cajole flowered folders
to unbloom into piles
high above you
even the clock ticks more evenly
under your glare
but you have no power over me
with your passive-aggressive
reminders of why I need you
you listen to me type
copy/paste *sigh*
backspace
I know you judge me
Hungry Gray Stapler
with your superpower
to shotgun-marry two papers
or ten never to separate again
unless four teeth pry them open
break the blessed union
once your savage hold
kept my words well ordered
rising action before climax
divorce decrees orderly
my poems from becoming paper airplanes
Dana Kinsey is a writer, actor, and teacher with poetry published in Writers Resist, One Art, Broadkill Review, For Women Who Roar’s 2020 Anthology, Fledgling Rag, Silver Needle Press, Porcupine Literary, Greatest City Collective, Sledgehammer Lit and prose in Prose Online, Teaching Theatre and Tweetspeak. Dana's play, WaterRise, was produced at the Gene Frankel Theatre for the Radioactive Women’s Festival.
Art: Summer Dreaming 1 by Rina Patel