Looking Back

LOOKING BACK

Come the boardroom review at the end

of first quarter there will be 

an imbalance in the budget: payments 

never received cause never paid, 

or payments paid but mis-wired 

to the wrong account. In most cases

it doesn’t add up to an amount 

meriting bankruptcy, window-shutter, 

but it does serve to explain what remains 

of the account manager’s time here:

her penchant to scrap a penny or two 

in unexpected investments, his odd routine 

of drifting to sleep between perfectly 

even sheets, and then that recurring dream 

of some high-level exec whose face

they can never see stooping over 

to kiss their foreheads the way their parents

never did, whispering go back to sleep

sweetie, I’ll take it from here.