internship 

all summer i worked in a tall building in mid-town
where bouquets of elevators took us into the sky.
i was always in a hurry. my blood had legs. 
everyone was so clean. how did they stay 
so clean in the city? their clean suites 
& their clean shoes & their clean faces 
despite the heat & the grime. i sweat.
i fanned myself on the elevator ride up
to the fourteenth floor. it doesn't matter 
what i did up there in those rows & rows of cubicles.
i have forgotten my computer's password
& the name of the person who sat next to me. 
i did not network enough. i took notes
for poems. i thought about all the electricity 
coarsing through the building like a great monster.
i star-gazed at the neon lights overhead. 
this is why i'm not going to have a career 
& i'm fine with that. 
i have been thinking about how terrible it is
to fill giant buildings with work & money 
& fingers & keyboards.
i didn't look out the huge glass windows
nearly enough. in one spot i'd sit for lunch
i could see the people moving just the same
in the building next door to ours.
the windows made me feel important.
i wore the same three pairs of dress pants.
same belt. at lunch tables other interns 
talked about starting salaries.
at the window i thought about 
how proud my mom sounded 
everytime i described the building to her.
she'd ask for pictures & i'd send them.
once or twice i watched clouds out the windows.
they were thin & whispy with humidity.
i'm imagining a skyscraper 
in my home town. you would be able to see
so far. all the corn fields & all the pastures
& all of main street with its tiny shops.
if this were my building
i would leave it empty. o i want to see that.
the bones all white & gazing.
the staircases begging to be climbed. 
the elevetars would be the only contraption. 
bodies beaming higher & higher.
i should have tried to go to the top.
i wonder what they do up there.
does the city look like a diarama?
all the toy cars honking themselves apart.
i'm not meant for this kind of work.
it tour me apart. all the poetry. 
i always felt the impulse
to lay on the floor in the elevator 
on the way down. i never did.
i leaned against the wall. 
everyone small-talked so easily. 
i should have asked them about their windows
but i focused on my legs. the long pants swallowing them. 
the flower patterns on my button-up shirt.
the image of a skyscraper in the middle 
of a corn field.