Retiree

they congratulated her,
they made cakes and hung a banner in the front corridor.
they were clapping when she dropped her keys in her purse.
she looked up:
smiled, beaming.
they made glib jokes:
“it’s all margaritas and sandy toes from here.”
they laughed and
she laughed.

at night, Lira waited at the door with a few remaining cupcakes on a tray as she tapped her toe in mock impatience. “Don’t worry yourself. I’ll take care of this old girl,” said Lira gesturing expansively at the 90 year old library they stood in. Lira was a sardonic woman, but well-humored.
ten years earlier, Lira’s humor had confused her at first. “I know you will,” said the librarian and shooed her to leave:
“I’ll lock up. I want to check out a book. Last one as a professional library scientist.”
Lira came over.
they hugged, then Lira left.

She walked through the aisles, pulled one book, replaced it, pulled another, shuffled the pages, replaced it, pulled another.
120,000 books.
Tennyson, no Dickinson…no, no. No Collins. Billy Collins:
a poet with a name that doesn’t sound like a poet.
he did laugh at the reading, at your joke. 25 years ago.
beaming.
she went to her desk, wrote out a return stub, dropped the book in her purse, shut off the lights, closed and locked the door.

she was weeping
before she made it halfway through the parking lot.
she went to her car and sat there with her purse in her lap and wept.
for 33 years she wept;
the parking lot quiet and empty. she beat her fist on
the steering wheel. she stopped when
the last one left a bruise
and it hurt to make a fist anymore.

you can see it in their eye when they speak; they look
just over your head to one side, looking at
a world they imagine right then and there:

right then and there,
a perfect world is in the balance.
they hand you books, records, end tables,
almost never groceries, sometimes drinks, and sometimes news you’d hoped would be different.
they hand you poems, or healthy and healing animals. they give advice that saves lives, and laughter if they too are very very lucky. but, in the end, they too must watch the world from a distance.

there are perks to hating your job.
not many, but there is at least one.

perhaps, it is the only one.