Looking For A Job Poem by Ragy Sandid

Looking for a job

In a sleazy apartment
Sitting with well-begotten people
I waited
The chairs are from a hair saloon
The tables from a coffee shop
I noticed myself in the mirror
And debated
Looking at the archaic chandelier
Why I came here

I remembered vaguely
Sitting in the hot suit
That I came after phone call 1
Then phone call 2
I was invited
I was excited
But the wait was long
And the smiles were strange
Like espionage
Promising reward
Not knowing what's in store

Then came the papers
And I wrote and I wrote and wrote
Till my knuckles were sore
And my eyes were sore
And my mind telling me "no more"

Then in corridors of the unknown
I walked
The wooden stairs stressing their
Sound under my feet
And the rooms kept getting smaller
I felt myself a Gulliver

Those nice young ones
And their nice eyes
And their gift-wrapped questions
Like they are questioning
Themselves
Not me
A good question first
Then a hard question
And so on
Till I was told
To go there

I went into the small room
Where the others
Were at coffee tables
With techno gadgets
And told to sit
And work out
The long linen of my life
With questions of the heart
Questions of the soul
To bear all
And what's more
They'll give me a score

I answered
Questions about my anger
I answered
Questions if I were a good dancer
I answered
Questions if I embraced danger
I answered
Till I had no answers

Then I was told to rest
Between one test
And the other test
And I saw the rest
With eyes that had eyes
Searching for the prize
They'll take home
And fill the air with cries

Then came the easy part
The part I knew
The part where I hid my heart
And used only what I knew
But every bit of line I wrote
Was a thought I thought
Or a memory I brought
Or mention something I'd rather not

Then my watcher I asked
"How much time? "
He told me a minute
A minute to the score
A minute to the down floor
A minute to the door
A minute to the heartbeat
I count no more

I sit
I wait
I stare at the chandelier
It testifies
I was once here
But it defies
If it'll stay
And longer or shorter than that
I'll be on my way