Staples
Submitted by Beth Cortez-Neavel on April 15, 2009 – 12:05 pm3 Comments
Staples
By Beth Cortez-Neavel
She had too many staples, she decided.
They just sat there on her cluttered desk
in her tiny apartment
in their little blue box
taking up space.
“Fuck,” he said,
sitting desperate in his spacious flat downtown
holding his final college essay
ever.
“I just ran out
of staples.”
Later, at the convenience store,
He complained to the clerk:
“You know that pack you buy at the beginning of freshman year?”
Yeah, she said.
The package comes with 500 staples.
“You think,” he said,
“you’d never use that many staples.”
I know what you mean, she said.
“But here it is,” he said.
“Last week of senior year,
and now I have to go buy a whole new pack.”
She looked at him in pity.
They’re down aisle five, she said.
©
nevermind, my mood has changed since an hour ago and you’ve since inspired me to write erotic poetry. how’d that happen?
There isn’t much to explain. This poem is like a short fiction story, only shorter… and a poem.
There is (I hope) in “Staples” the feeling of frustration and pity and irony.
“She” is the clerk.
Staples often come in ridiculous amounts to a package. Rarely does a student think they will come to the end of the box.
can you explain this to me? i’m sorry, it could just be me, a lot of things aren’t speaking to me clearly lately.