[POEM] Office Maid by Julia Clark
This poem juxtaposes the mundanity of contemporary office work with the fantasticality of supernatural mythology for a surreal take on modern work culture and its often obscured ties to environmental destruction and capitalism exploitation.
Office Maid
by Julia Clark
The snap of fluorescent lights bodies mixing stale air wakes her.
the morning coffee / smoko begins she emerges
lets loose her hair gummy with sleep
and boots up Windows—
a bucket of fresh salt water from the weekend
Provided (under contract) by maintenance.
Throughout the day / they see her perched
upon her swivel chair. Her humanoid surface curvaceous
like bench cushioning more than sex appeal.
bunched but like appealingly
broad shoulders, dimpled elbows
bent to prop her barren eyes toward Gmail.
Her tail slopes to the floor
four puckered fins, shrunken & fleshy, plunked in her bucket
beneath the plastic-coated desk.
At end of day her body is crusty.
Those still in the office / see her
remove a jar of Vaseline and rub globs into her bleached scales
paying extra attention to the narrow gaps her membranous skin seeps.
Julia Clark is a poet, reviewer, and academic based in Sydney, Australia on Ku-ring-gai and Darug land. Her work is interested in the intersection of aesthetics, objects, and bodies. If she’s not reading or writing, she’s at the theatre.