The Dance of the Temp

She shows up drunk
to her first office party, wearing
unusually high heels, smiling
at the wrong people,

her allegiance
unknown. Some groan,
now stumbling upon the idea
of an afternoon with her, nothing too
tawdry besides the piled papers
on her metal desk brushed
aside, unfiled, but the vision

tangles in her fly away hair. And now
beneath a naked lightbulb
she turns in partnerless circles,
her eyes myopic, body
leaving something to be desired.

We sip from her motion like uncertain bees;
our desires hum and fade. Some
query her hips and the corded turn
of her neck. Some whistle the song
of she'll be replaced
by October, so long,
move on.

She slumps to the kitchen. Our crowd moves on.
Her pale and clerical fingers — so long —
are already fading.

 

© Jenniffer Lesh