Thirty years old, forty, yet still we daily covet
the covert--gargoyles and Garfield propped atop
our monitors, a pastiche of sentries, watch kept

for the boss. If messages to your pal in personnel
resemble minutes or a memo to headquarters
in Milwaukee, no one knows what you're doing,

assuming the work gets done. So exchange
flirty jokes with your green-eyed friend upstairs;
third graders passing notes, the dreary afternoon

saved by chaste communique. At 3:45, the day
interminable, marital woes from your brother,
whose address, encoded, wed to numerals,

becomes an electronic esperanto of the past . . .
artg8@clipper, his executive identity a shorthand
for scrawls on spiral notebooks, Minute Men,

bedroom ships launched below the cursor's pulse.
Refill your stained mug with awful coffee, then fire
back analysis of his wife disguised as a chart--

The long commute home remains an hour away . . .
Behind the credenza, the boss skulks. O Camouflage,
our savior, we despise what we do so much.

(Previously published in Shenandoah)