Poetry March 2008 Atlantic

by Mary Jo Salter

Executive Shoe Shine

Article Tools

email E-mail Article
print Printer Format

It may go on snowing forever,
but meanwhile, how he’s basking
in the sun of his own multi-tasking!
He’s perched erect on his throne,
looking down on the airport food court,
as the silver snail of a cell-phone
earpiece hooked to his ear
hangs on his every word.
No way to cut him short
until the runways are cleared
and they’ve finished out there de-icing
the right wing, then the left wing
of all those planes before his.
Could he strike us a deal with the weather?
The man hunched below him polishes
one wingtip, then the other.

Mary Jo Salter's sixth collection, A Phone Call to the Future: New and Selected Poems, has just been published. She teaches in the Writing Seminars program at Johns Hopkins University.

Article Tools

email E-mail Article
Printer Format
Share

Subscribe to our e-mail newsletter.

 

Also By

Mary Jo Salter

June 1980

Annie, Don't Get Your Gun

The question of whether women should be drafted forces society to think more deeply about both war and feminism.


Name

Address 1

Address 2

City

State Zip

Email