Coffee
Made a single cup;
fuel needed after waking
at 4 in the morning.
Vinegar
There’s a bottle of balsamic
on the table, waiting to be
drizzled over someone’s
leftovers for lunch.
100 Hits
Here’s a copy of
Billboard’s Hottest
Hot 100 Hits, a gift to
the staff lounge
from an intern of mine
from two years ago.
His name was Chuck.
History Adoption
In an era that finds
the textbook mostly
obsolete, several choices
are on display on a table
in the staff lounge.
Vending Machines
Chips, candy, and soda.
Only one sugarless choice:
seltzer. These machines
keep humming.
Crap
There’s some crap in here
no one uses and no one wants:
desk organizers, empty binders,
old VHS tapes that Melanie left,
a 2016 copy of U.S. News &
World Report, the “Find the Best
Colleges for You” edition.
Who?
Who will throw out the crap?
Who will clean the microwave?
It belongs to nobody.
It’s nobody’s business.
The Lounge
The principal before
the one before the one
we have now, maybe
15 years ago, bought
two burgundy love seats,
a matching chair, and
a coffee table that looks
like a box in order to
beautify the lounge
and make it more
comfortable.
Dr. Rex Putnam Award
Candidate summaries. Please,
DO NOT REMOVE.
We Love You
in gigantic letters
taped up on the wall
from last year’s teacher
appreciation week,
maybe even from the
year before. It’s so hard
to keep track of the love.
We have to remind ourselves
by looking at this wall
every day.
michael jarmer 