Poems by Anthony Borruso
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Cubicle
by Anthony Borruso
From Canary Summer 2019
Anthony grew up on Staten Island, where he lived a block away from the salt marsh and beach grass of Gateway Beach. He now lives in Indianapolis just south of where the White River curls into Broad Ripple Park.
No tie noosed round my throat, no
attaché case at the end of my arm
like an anchor. I’m just the boy
my mother measured on the closet door,
the one who swallowed a handful
of pomegranate seeds and was made
to stay in this body twelve months
out of every year. No cubicle assigned
to me except for this bone-box
my brain came in, ivory confine
of the mind; if I must go to the office—
give me a mahogany desk and plant
it out by the pines, top it with moss
and scotch decanter. Let there be
a mail-boy blooming acne, a secretary
sheathed in primrose. Conferences
of blackbirds and that great machine
the sky pumping out its endless blue
until up on a rope comes the moon.
Sure, this job might be a dead-end,
but when I clock out I’ll exit
through a door in the grass.
© Anthony Borruso