Punctilious And Solicitous Poem by Margaret Alice Second

Quietly woven into the mesh of cable web of my
daughter's headphones, recovering from shock
- discovering how few documents were received
recently, I should be redeployed as tea-girl - the
only job I can foresee - combating memory of my
lack-lustre offering of coffee at a meeting with our
professor while still a student in residence, fifteen
different kinds of mugs collected from everyone,
some cracked, some too small -

Made me fear mental incompetence, that I was
a lackadaisical person with no future, yet I got a
distinction in that professor's subject: philosophy,
weathering that storm gives me confidence that I
shall weather this one too - I only hope wearing a
tea-girl's uniform and smiling at the Department of
Art's Minister & other supreme officials, brings job
satisfaction, offering fine porcelain cups arranged
beautifully on a neat tray without spilling -

Becoming a clone of Hercule Poirot*, a perfectionist,
punctilious and solicitous….

[* Hercule Poirot - character created by Agatha Christie]