My First Choice Poem by Margaret Alice Second

Alone in the office, faced with the choice of starting
to read a boring document about roads – national roads,
highways, international roads, paved roads, gravel roads,
dirt roads – and I find it impossible to choose the boring
document, I want to talk about

Spring time and flowers and jasmine and trees and the wide
blue sea, about decorating my world with symbols of thought,
about music and singing and perfume and joy - but I must com-
pile a register of government books in my possession, declare
everything I have with me, I want to read

Carpe Jugulum, how Granny Weatherwax was dragged to the
vampires’ lair by Mightily Oats, the prophet of Om, yet the
classification of roads and the impact of transport on Africa
waits to be relayed in English - I want to breathe freely, yet
I am stuck in a 30 degree Celsius office and

My first choice, to work for a living, dictates my second
choice, to stay here, throwing in the towel is not my style
but oh, I wish it could be!