Morgan Boyle: August 2021 Poet of the Month
Photo: Joanna C. Valente
I Am Lucky I Am Working I Am Not Sad I Am Eating Thin Mints
I am sorry!
There is one working fluorescent light in the breakroom
There is one working fluorescent light in the breakroom
There is one fluorescent light in the breakroom
it is working
can you tell?
God you are so lucky today
God you are so lucky it is working today
God you are so lucky to be working today
God you are lucky to be working today when so many are not
God
Someone put Thin Mints in the breakroom
Jesus Christ Almighty someone went and put Thin Mints in the breakroom
Thin Mints are in the breakroom and so are you and so is the one working fluorescent light
Bask Goddamnit!
Look! Look at you!
Look at you you who are not dead
Look at you you who are not dead today under the one working fluorescent light
Look at you you who are not dead today basking in the breakroom
Look at you lucky you you who are working today
Look! Work is what you’ve worked for!
Work is what you’ve gained!
Work is what to do until you are dead!
Work is one fluorescent light and basking and Thin Mints and breakroom and not being dead!
Work is what Jesus Christ is dead for!
God you are so lucky today
Today the day we are to give thanks for your luck in not being dead
Today the day we are to give thanks for your luck in working
Today the day we are to give thanks for the work done by others to give work to you
this work done by you given by others most definitely impacting the world
forms! impacting the world!
forms! impacting us all!
forms! full of impacting information!
forms! impacting us softly as corpses in the grounds of the earth!
forms! we all rot the same!
Today the day we are to give thanks for days off for the thanksgiving holiday
Give thanks for us!
Give thanks for the PDF on gratitude we are gifting you!
Give thanks for your living body that is employed!
Give thanks for if you are reading the PDF you are not dead!
Give thanks for not being sad!
Give thanks for if you are sad you are not dead!
Give thanks for us reminding you that you are not dead!
Give thanks for not being dead and sad!
Give thanks for we will see your not dead and not sad body at work tomorrow!
Give thanks for you are welcome!
Slide the Thin Mints down the not dead throat of the lucky working body basking in the
breakroom under the one working fluorescent light
Slide the Thin Mints Down
Slide the Thin Mints down you are not dead
Slide the Thin Mints down you still haven’t died
Slide the Thin Mints down and Good God Almighty and Jesus Christ also!
Slide the Thin Mints down and feel the morale flow through you!
Boots Upstairs at Night
i am noise personified
i am noise reheated
i am 4am doc martens on the thin top floor
eviction looms and
i am only fucking him in the dining room now
creating space between our bodies
and the shameful papers posted to the door
detailing to the empty hall the sound of our indiscretion
as heard by the ears on the head of the man downstairs
“Dear People—"
sometimes, i wonder if i make him lonely
we or i sleep here now where the table once was
sung to sleep by the fridge in the next room
it feels indecent sleeping in view of the sink
the dishes stare me down
who carpeted the kitchen and why?
3.5 yrs my body has coveted and shed skin in this space
now for the first time
from the comfort of my mattress i can
contemplate all that blue
lapping the stove, crisping round the radiator
rolling molding into the bathroom
surrounding the shower
soaked through on the regular
a gift for the cockroaches alone
i am confusing the cockroaches
i am only eating at the kitchen table in the bedroom now
i am aware the man’s head with his ears on rests on his pillow below me
i eat quieter
from my table
i am watching the hiway
i am not this noise
how did we sleep in this room?
semis rolling past rattle windows,
snatches of music snake from cars,
the singing of the woman with the shiny black teeth
circling the block again and again.
this building tilts lovingly toward her,
a noticeable dip forward, a nod to the street
i chase down pencils dropped
in the dining room where i now sleep
they roll across the living room floor
under the table, tucking themselves into the wood
border on the far wall of the bedroom
where i used to lay gazing at the
shaking cobwebbed chandelier
listening to the skittering wall squirrels in spring
we’d all wake with the sun
me in bed and them
skritching through the spaces of ceiling
i dreamt i saw a tail once hanging down between the french doors
it is spring
i am still, wishing them good morning
there are shameful papers posted up in their halls too
letters pushed thru the holes in the walls
“Dear Squirrels—”
do they make the man downstairs feel lonely?
i am my landlord’s warning voicemail and the
small bit of bile in my throat every time
the phone rings
i am my own orgasms at peace with my body
lying in the dining room at night
i am 4 years of stuffed closets, clogged drains, crushed cockroaches, peeling counters,
craigslist couches w/ stains baked in, the smell of the hallway in the winter when the heat kicks on, specific slants of light across floors that will snag skin if you’re not careful
i am human in an apartment where the sun resides
i am spending every morning my body draped in light
Morgan Boyle (she/her) is a person, librarian, and poet based out of the New York City area, currently residing in Ridgewood. She can be found on Instagram @morgan.le_fay.
