Natalie Shapero

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You Can’t Go In There

It’s devastating, this waiting until I’m a ghost
so I can haunt you, so I can have a fighting
chance of convincing you against
the way you’re snapping that string of victory
photos, flanked by three scorched
children, or gilding the page of the paper
on which they announced your award
for observing the horrible thing. When I say
that the list of your ten top feel-goods
makes me want to die, I mean it makes me
want to grow into a ghost so I can
haunt you, haunt you for singing
the praises of the film where the lowly worker
storms the boardroom, blowing past
the secretary with her thin YOU CAN’T
GO IN THERE – yes, you’ve got enough sense

to get that you’re not the boss in this scene,
but, baby, if you think you’re the great
redeemer of the lunch line, I’ve got
breaking news – you are the secretary.
You are and always have been and will be,
until your haunting, the defender
of this order – you are there at the acacia
desk in the room before the room
where the creaming happens,
with your calendar and rolodex and fifteen
fine-line heavy pens, floors above
the cornerstone, one hand up
in indignation, one hand on the phone.

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NATALIE SHAPERO is the author of Hard Child and No Object. She teaches at Tufts University.