Moment at Work

I had a moment this evening when I was closing up the store. I caught a glimpse of myself in one of the mirrors and noticed that I wasn't sixteen anymore. In fact, I looked like an adult. Thought: "I'm too fucking old for this shit".

 And keeping with this evening's theme (ie: moments that I have had over my career of particularly unrewarding and unchallenging jobs) I found a copy of a poem I wrote when I was working at the City Gallery about a year and a half ago. It was during the Rosalie Gascoigne retrospective exhibition where I was working as a security assistant (stopping small children from licking the works). And, best of all, it rhymes. So it must be true.

 An Untitled Poem about women moving around the exhibits at the Rosalie Gascoigne exhibition at the City Gallery

 *Clears throat - I still have a nasty cough*

 Middle aged ladies move in packs
Head to toe in pearls and slacks;
Like so many merino plumed birds
They move around the art works, briskly,
Light on one and then the other
Want to see how they were put together
Speculate on the nature of holes (drilled or found)
So impatiently they move around.
A Sounding board, one to the other
Suspect one is my boyfriend's mother,
And yet know one day, not too distant I too
In sensible shoes and high-hemmed pants
With waists will be discussing my personal artistic
Tastes, with others
In well-coiffured flocks
Contemplating artists of a modernist bent (and preceding)
And forging my own, unthreatening meaning.