at the meeting

The room was uncomfortably quiet
like where you could hear a pen drop
like a splash of water on the ground
sounds like a time bomb
like a mouse scurrying through the room
sounds like an elephant on crack
like when you have to cough
but you don'twant to disrupt the solemnity
so you suppress it and end up making
strange grunting noises
hand over mouth
cold sweat and muffled kleenex.
and there are suits and ties
and power ponytails and black heels
and note taking with pens advertising drugs
that keep us awake and
put us to sleep.
cups half full with cold coffee
and water bottles unscrewed,
swigged, and screwed again
and the speaker with the voice that can't quite
escape from his throat so it whines its way
through the pipe and past the tongue only to
fall flat before it even makes an impact.
but he likes to thrust his fingers up to make
quotes in the air and ends
phrases using
with it
with this and
with that.
but we're all in this together
the crack elephants
the suitsthe ponytails
the silence
and it's almost over.