Skeleton Staff
Spring Bank Holiday. The first hot day of the year.
As the others, in shorts, slob around beer gardens
or sprawl in parks with chicklit/new noir/cult horror
or take to the hills with sandwiches and suncream
or, closing the curtains, go back to bed for sex –
skeleton staff clip softly around the workspace,
stroking the cool chrome of the filing cabinets,
the beaded chill of the water dispenser;
not switching on computers, not talking on the phone.
A spent sigh hangs in the air like a limp windsock.
The carpet no longer smells of trampled ambition.
The sun has passed the window. The shade is unconditional.
Stripped of flesh, the bones make the place their own.
About this poem
This poem was reproduced on a postcard for National Poetry Day 2008. Eight poetry postcards are published each year by the Scottish Poetry Library to celebrate National Poetry Day and are distributed throughout Scotland to schools, libraries and other venues. The theme for 2008 was work. You can find out more about National Poetry Day in our National Poetry Day pages, where you’ll also find resources to go with the poems.
