naif splash

Sunrise
the end of the work day
in a pink-green office
hardcore seventies style
sixties music playing through
the in-wall speakers

i was humming to
love and the beatles
placing papers in piles
and waiting

soon the last few men
of the day would arrive
with their papers
in anticipation of
my approval stamp

he came up to me
and smiled like he
always did
emilio
whose wife drove a
white ford taurus and
waited for him
in the parking lot
each evening

that day he leaned
down real close to my face
to put down his papers

i looked up in confusion
unsure why he’d pierced
my personal space

time seemed to speed up
and slow down at the
same time

he said i smelled good
i’d had a temporary fetish
with vanilla-scented lotions
then he leaned even closer
and kissed the middle
of my neck

i froze

immediately he stepped back
and said he’d see me the next day

without a chance to respond
or release him with an approval stamp
he was gone

i felt flushed, confused,
angry, and scared
i was new, and he’d
been there for fifteen years
a man forty years older
than me

i never said a word
and he never kissed me
again

for three years i hated
the colors pink and green
speakers in walls
sixties music
ford taurus’s
men in their sixties
doting wives
approval stamps
being alone
looking up the word
– despoiled –
and not knowing
how to scream
with sound
Sunset