Broken
The copy machine is broken so we have
called in a man to come and fix
it—urgently—because without it we
can’t duplicate
anything—not a contract,
receipt of purchase, or
even a simple idea
we can’t even fax or scan without
it—which means we and our
thoughts are completely
confined to this little office and its open
floorplan with no way
of communicating in a documented way
with the outside world.
Yes, we could call—but who can trust
word of mouth agreements
anymore? and yes, we could
email but where does one
sign the dotted line
in an email that binds
us and is immune
to deletion?
This brokenness is holding
us—we are losing light,
the room smells stale, and it is getting hard
to breathe. All we can do now
is move to the windows and stare
out like so many fish without air—knowing
that the belly-up float is coming
soon—until the man comes and asks us if
one of us “inadvertently” might
have kicked the machine before
it broke and started
printing page after page of
fix me please fix me please fix
me please fix me.
This poem first appeared in Ellipsis…Literature and Art Volume 60, 2024