My name is desperation. My name.
Spent forty years working. Forty years.
Started as a clerk. Retail sales my game.
Forty years. Worked my way up. Hard work.
A manager I became. Employee of the year.
Once. Pension. Top of my game. High up.
Sold the chain, they did. Some folks
from Dubai, they said. No changes, they said.
No changes. Forty years, no changes.
Neighbor lost his job, the plant closed.
His house foreclosed. Boarded up. Closed.
Closed the store, they did. Sales down.
Stock down. Buck up, my wife said.
Forty years. On top I was. A pension.
Sorry, they said. While you were up
the stocks went down. Down they said. Down.
Gone, they said. The pension. Forty years.
I’m sixtyfive. Sending out resumes that
Disappear like yesterdays, like forty years.
Gone. And no one responds. No one.
No one needs a sixtyfive-year-old man.
Except maybe a sixtyfour-year-old woman
Who cries at night because we have to go.
We have to go. The bank foreclosed. Gone.
When you’re down, you’re down. Forty years.
Yep. Gone. Snap, like that. Man on TV said
Economy doesn’t have a face. No face. Said
It was the banker’s fault. Sounds right.
Wasn’t mine. Like my job. Like my house.
Wasn’t mine. Forty years. Gone.
Don’t know anything about the economy.
Or finance. Except mine. Or faces. Except mine.
Economy needs a face. Here. It can use mine.
I don’t need it anymore. Forty years. Gone.
My name is desperation. My name.