I, Executive

by John Zedolik

If I turn off the flatscreen in this

            waiting room, I believe I would have

            my wish of silence and its black block

            of no-sight even when others customers,

            who must arrive, come in,

            and sit—for they would believe that

            the set is down or for some reason disallowed

            today by the corporate masters and their

            whip commands, which they flick out of

            pearlshine teeth

            glistening in the glossy saliva of congeniality

            and agreeability, and so sit in silent contemplation

            of the void attached high on the wall, comfy

            in the armchair’s upholstery and

            the attendant magazines

            to which they refer in forgotten desire

            of images, even still, dead in their minds, relative

            to those upon the erstwhile provider of shifting

            shapes that I have decreed imagines non gratae

            in my impersonation of executive, company control