His Day

Conrad sits at his desk, fluoresced
by routine, the arthritis
of organization. His annual
evaluation is a pineapple bomb,
ticking.

At lunch, Conrad is a bundle
of celery boiled soft.

Conrad takes one for the home team,
the long halls and the bustling
arsenals of the work place.
He consumeth the wonderbread
of anxious toil, networks
the small vexations of the heart.

Dead from the ankles up, Conrad
zombies the aisles of Kwik-E-Mart.

Conrad returns to his lair. Immersed
in the jacuzzi light of his flatscreen,
he relaxes into homogeneity,
diffidence, the small beer
of american idolatry.