Ruth Holzer
Men at Work
We’re scheduling the day’s assignments at our morning meeting. The situations in Russia and China appear stable for the moment, but the Balkans are still doing their Balkan thing; the newsfeed carries a report that militiamen had overrun a mountain village yesterday and raped some women. How many women? A dozen. Not enough to write about. Now, two hundred women, that would be a different story. No news today—continue working on your own research projects. I slope off to my cubicle, to my sleek computer and ergonomic chair, and cobble together a few more paragraphs of “The Long-Term Outlook for the European Automotive Industry: Confronting the Challenges of Japanese Competition for Global Market Share.”
my necklace of crystals suddenly spilling all over the floor
About the Author
Ruth Holzer‘s short-form poems have appeared previously in cho as well as in Atlas Poetica, frogpond, Modern Haiku, Presence, red lights, Ribbons and many anthologies. She has served as a co-editor of Haibun Today and assistant editor of tinywords. She has also published five chapbooks of longer verse.