Blackberries

No one asks where I am from.
I make up to seven coffee runs a day
for up to eleven different people.
I cannot afford the Prada pumps,
nor walk in them, for that matter.
But Dad's old brown loafers,
with the stitching coming undone
along the sides,
are good enough for me.

No one can speak my name.
If they did, they wouldn't be able
to pronounce it anyway.
I know four languages,
none of them American.
When spoken to, I answer in strained English,
the sharp sounds tripping over my tongue.

What they say must be true;
I am meant only to carry a clipboard,
to fetch papers
spitting viciously out of a machine,
to correct other people's mistakes
on Documents of Importance
being sent up to the Big Guy.
The Blackberries buzz,
a hive of bees
in three-pieces and pencil skirts.

No one knows that when Connor Carpenter told me
to hold his Blackberry while he went
to the copier room with Sydney Applebaum,
"in case my wife calls,"
I e-mailed the entire department
(plus his wife),
telling them just what
the copier room was being used for.
In the ladies' room,
Blackberry trembling madly
as it lay in the toilet,
I went to wash my hands.