True Definition

This was writen not long ago, in a (somewhat typical) state of discontent whilst working a menial position in a large supermarket.

How can I help you today?

Another sullen face, no bags,

Ask not for plastic, but for canvas

Burlap or something suitable

For a conscientious and dignified woman

of middle age, spitting derision

for all those poor lives she saved.

Oh so better than I,

She must think as she clouds herself

behind a glass of middle-range wine

Oh so better than I

As she knows that week upon week

I still sit amongst the endless beep

and waste my youth to monotony

She, and those before her, only saw

A young boy in ill-fitted uniform

Inferior to her designs

of worth and what is worth her time

And that is not I.

No time to chat, and silence remains

behind that dull aching beat

of beep on beep.

Our time comes to a close

and she wraps her tongue in her cheek

as I take her hard earned money.

Why should she, so much nobler than me

Not suggest my complacency

Check the receipt.

Glare back at me for being so rude

as to deny her that superiority

of being right

and she leaves. Canvas bags in tow,

In the hands of some eunuch

a husband perhaps.

And knows me to have been, surely, at some fault

Someone as low as me.

But no, I have no mistake to make

more dire than that

Of working myself to death

for a living wage.

Author's Note

This is my first attempt to introduce the spoken quality of the poem through written expression, hopefully it comes across, please let me know what you think.