The Business Man
by Gail Entrekin

The company, like a small herd of brilliant sheep
who have inadvertently grazed all morning on marijuana,
staggers toward its highly technical goals.
Worker sheep wander off in all directions
and you are the sheepdog, the pro whose rented brain
holds the final destination and inherent true shape
of the herd. Your special skill, like that of any whore
or genius, becomes depleted, sucked away.
You circle the perimeter, hushing the bleating panic here,
signaling danger there, as the herd swerves just in time
to avoid the abyss.

You are good, all right,
and well worth these exorbitant rates.
What's left at the end of the day
pushes open the front door
necktie hanging like a noose.

Stepping across the sticky floor
around the broken chairs
between the moving clumps of fighting and weeping children
I feed you, take you in where it's hot and sweet,
nothing to remember but the way
the current takes you, slides you back,
pulls you in again.


 

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