Paperwork Poem by Val Morehouse

New city. No job. No apartment.
Behold the unemployed,
plastic slicker dripping like a lab specimen
ready for formaldehyde;
or a turkey in cold storage.
All bad judgment and worse luck,
will my number ever turn up?

Moving in lines toward desks
peopled with the bald gargoyles of bureaucracy,
slopping sound across muddy floors,
hairpin turns and loops crossing the
same faces queueing in the one earth, one lifeboat phase
scribbling endless histories
with ink-stained fingers to
the smell of burned coffee.
To the confused noise of unintelligible questions
souls are tossed like so much browned salad
into the out basket.

Like watching my own death,
with nowhere else to go
God help me stay above it all.
I could be sending out resumes on the internet.