Dictation

Furthermore, there are occasions when
I wish to raise the windowsill
and shout obscenities into the street,
loudly and with violence.
Of course I never do. Full stop.
Instead I offer my mistakes to be plucked out
like silver hairs by Mr. Collinson,
a small god dressed in loafers
and a double-breasted suit
who lodges in my ear all afternoon
dictating minutes of The Management Review.
But I would sooner tell you

how the sky sheds drizzle, sheer as iron filings
on a group of children shambling from school;
how I weep inside the porcelain confessionals
admitting my desire to wound, and grievously,
the hairsprayed middle manager;
how I hope to find my guardian angel
crouched inside the stationery cupboard
counting paperclips, ready to unfold
her giant wings and fly me
past the awkward fellowship of office drinks,
past desks made homely with a snapshot of the kids,
beyond the Seventh Floor executives
resplendent in their offices like cardinals,
up through stratospheres of city smog,
up into space --- the boundless silence
where she'll let me go ---
a million memos floating free,
the telephones of earth a distant memory.