The job is not the pay: What she felt was

seasonal gloom was a plain old work day’s

ripe bouquet, futile parfum. Lateness

wreaths, compounds; might keep for a thousand years 

like poison ivy or honey deep in

Pharaoh’s tomb. Prompt payment was a virtue

on a wobbly barstool like an egg 

webbed with cracks but whole. Hard boiled or no,

a criminal’s no stronger than she. He

bides his untallied captivity on

a display of weakness. Drop your trousers

at the urinal and come to missing teeth,

wake on the train to find the only trace 

of your nameplate necklace is a tan line.