For years my dependable blue thermos has languished in the mudroom on a high metal shelf, still wearing its matching suit and cap as if hoping for a return to the office where it can assume its place on the corner of my desk, all day keeping the coffee hot, joining others like itself— stalwart stapler, wire in-basket and green banker’s lamp— which, through the monotony of hours, worked as a team, each of them doing its one job well.
And which though scattered now— to a shelf, a landfill, a box in the attic— I want to bring together for a mini reunion, acknowledging their productivity and service— the fealty of their careers— with the sharpened point of a Ticonderoga No. 2 pencil which in corporate yellow, in the flattened hat of its smudged eraser, it seems only fitting should deliver the speech.
Joseph Chelius is the author of two collections of poems with WordTech Communications: The Art of Acquiescence and Crossing State Lines. His work has appeared in Commonweal, Poet Lore,Poetry East, Rattle, and other journals.
