On The Job

On the job
We walk through
New buildings, punch lists still
Taped to elevator doors
And old cluttered corridors
Basements crowded with detritus
From loading docks, laboratories
Filled with graduate students
Wielding pipettes
Cork bulletin boards in hallways
Newspaper clippings
So old, yellow and cracked
Advertising seminars so long ago
The speakers may be dead by now
Every once in a while
An unused room
A freezer rattling in the hall


At the top of a long flight of stairs
A door open to the roof
Step out, just from curiosity
See the view from the top
Bridges over the Willamette
From Ross Island to Fremont
Mts Hood and St Helens
Almost cloud height here
The mist wraps around us
We stand
Torn away
From the day’s work


by Frank Vehafric