Pages upon pages and pages and pages and pages

appear on his desk before he is done

for the night; he stays, and he works, until 

the clock strikes eleven. Eyes bleary,

weary, he checks his inbox to find six

emails clogging his feed. An hour passes, spent

in misery and old caffeine. He falls

asleep, buried deep in dreams of conference calls.

Pages and pages and pages and pages and…

In the modern world, work is never done.

More piles up before it is begun. 

You carry it with you, in your briefcase, 

in set shoulders, in the lines on your face.

From nine to five, past five to nine a-m.