- Non-Erotic Poetry
- Cubicle
Note: You can change font size, font face, and turn on dark mode by clicking the "A" icon tab in the Story Info Box.
You can temporarily switch back to a Classic Literotica® experience during our ongoing public Beta testing. Please consider leaving feedback on issues you experience or suggest improvements.
Click here
This cubicle, your modern day mending wall,
has frosted your model of living outside of descending
metal coffins in glass towers. Coffee break is always at 9.45,
one compartment of cream, two of sugar,
a swig of bittersweet coveting at the window,
andpitter, patter, let’s get at’er. Internal mail
gets the yellow, couriers the red. It’s a tube, it’s a box,
it’s an envelope, rush. Each corner of your day
cemented with double-sided tape. The train
is your lateral and last office, the one where we can
be alone with everyone else. You drop your wallet
and tiny cubicles of you glut the tops of galoshes.
You stash each part back into its proper container:
the bank cards, the insurance, the spare key,
the photo of your wife, your kids. Then me.
- COMMENTS
Anonymousalmost 16 years agoone of your best. The entire tone was patronizing and confining, not to mention confusing at the end. I find myself wondering what has happened to your work as of late.
Anonymousalmost 16 years agoBy definition, though, surely they can't all be. This line, though: "The train // is your lateral and last office, the one where we can / be alone with everyone else." is fabulous. You're a good poet, missy. Thanks. ;-)
KOLKOREalmost 16 years agoSomehow I feel that the poem is sticking it to people who work in these kinds of cubicles. It comes across as if in the poem they are either unaware of the conditions they work at or they somehow choose to work in these conditions. <P>
At the end, the poem gets us briefly involved in the relations between a woman and a married man. I had difficulty placing this part in relation to the theme of the poem up to that point. Do these relations shed light on the cubicle mentality; do the cubicles explain somehow those relations or are the two parts metonyms of each other? (I tried it, but couldn’t find a way to explain it this way) <P>
Finally, I feel that the post industrial critic coming across through the cubicles imagery is familiar: namely, I have seen similar images on offices with no privacy, when usually your images are astonishingly original. <P>
Before you get all upset and offended the reason I wrote these comments is not to discredit you as a creative poet (I don’t have the authority or the will to do so).
I am usually a fan of your work, and just want to keep it real with specific references to what could not work for me this time. True, workers conditions are a bit of a sensitive issue for me, which probably was a contributing factor, but overall no bashing whatsoever…and I am still a fan who is looking forward for your future submissions...
champagne1982almost 16 years agoReally effective imagery. I'd wanna get out of that place you paint so well too. Your ending evokes such melancholy after you've painted such a clear picture of the two-sided lives many of the workers stuck inside those towering office buildings.
This poem mentioned in the New Poems Review thread on Literotica's Poetry Feedback and Discussion forum.
