Technical Difficulties

The regional manager has a mouth

full of expensive teeth and words

like velocity and tiered incentives.

I nod until the base of my skull

feels like a rusted hinge,

agreeing that the graph is indeed

pointing toward a brighter Tuesday.

My notebook is mostly grocery lists

and a doodle of a sinking ship.

I watch the condensation ring

expand on the laminate table,

a clear, wet boundary between

his six-figure vocabulary

and my need for the half-hour break.