You've seen the skirts go up and down
In bread lines, soup lines, cheese lines, shanty towns.
No one can say you aren't seeking work.
The answers come by mail at noon: No interview.
The best companies never respond; you respect them.
Some days, you don't bother to open the letters,
Just tear them to bits and go out for a walk.
It's a small fraud by the world's standard:
You can't do things like ask for directions,
So you call yourself an adventure-collector.
Failure's a field with real opportunities
For a girl with a pile of business magazines
Which she will probably have to burn for heat.
Your luck will get either worse or better.
The world is none of your business;
It doesn't give you a living.
Someone calls your bluff, asks for references.
You read up on yourself in the library.
With lies, you can double your existence.
In an endless dream of introductory letters,
The applicants sit in all their best clothes,
Their ages against them, their loneliness
Repeated many times. The managers walk around, choosing.
You say you've done singing telegrams and balloon bouquets
(you've done strip-o-grams, sold flowers at traffic lights).
You're a cake decorator, you've been to zoo school
(you're a weeper-at-weddings, you eat cat food).
Welcome to the world of captivity.
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