Poem about our temporary boss June 20, 2013

 


She posted her first poem about our temporary boss in early May 2012, one more sign of her moving on, a sign I missed just ahead of my birthday, when I had assumed all was still relatively well between us.

She had already shared a number of stories with him partly based on her research into his background and the book he had recently published

she knew he had this thing for needy girls and found the topic of the mob in New Jersey fascinating

he had had dealings with the mob and his youth her past played into both of these things as well as his need to serve as a mentor to some young writer

he took very seriously her fear of her stalker from Brooklyn and took charge in making sure she was protected if something happened asking the receptionist in our office to put a photo of the man on our company server

the first clue about her interest in him came when I got to her apartment and found his book on her bed instead of mine a book that provided more insight into him than in than mine did and prompted her to ask me he's really screwed up when it comes to women isn't he

indeed his book resembled a number of books I wrote about the women in my life a bit too revealing especially when it served the purposes of a social engineer looking to trickle up in our company

how involved she got with him I still don't know jealousy made me think the worst although logistics worked against any affair between them being done easily partly because he didn't drive and would have needed to have someone pick him up or him to take public transportation to get to her apartment

it is difficult to picture him waiting nervously on a corner a few blocks from his home for her to come collect him

I suspect that he did go to her apartment as others before him had part of a ritual of temporary romance she had perfected me picturing again pictures she sent me of her friends there her poem of course is more than just about him the ability to once again get out from under the burden of self-imposed guilt he no doubt celebrating her rather then putting her down rather than confirming the dark self-image she had maintained about herself prior to this although told in one stanza that her poem might be divided into several parts the first of which explores the theme of self-accusation she would later explore in more depth in her fair unfair poem where she takes stock of her life and comes to realize she was an error in blaming herself and dares to reexamine her life with the able health of someone who is kind enough to tell enough to try enough to care enough to be enough to prove to her that she was right all I may be wrong in assuming this person in her life is our temporary plus yet the timing of the poem suggests that it is because it comes at a time when he had taken on the role as her mentor and was guiding her through her troubled life with a stalker

This came prior to my confrontation with her the leaving her at the bar and later meeting him in the park where I confided in him about her he appears to be the person who has adopted her and was helping her to deal with the emotional turmoil of her life in another slightly later poem she would make reference to him as the person who knew the right combination to unlock her deepest secrets

although they remain friends to this day his influence over her and her references to him in her poems was short lived and her interest in him seems to have faded once he lost his position as temporary boss when the full time boss returned from her maternity leave

I'm not saying her interest in him was merely because of the power he wielded and that she sought to use him the timing and her apparent move on to the owner make it look as if she had used him

if anything I have learned from a year of dissecting her poetry is that she is sincere right up to the point when she no longer needs to be and she may well have meant every word before she moved on to someone else

 


email to Al Sullivan

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