Agency

I call the agency. Mornings are preferable. Hello I say This is Latif. May I please have what I need now.

I would like them to say No. Maybe even hang up. At least this way

I know what I am. Where I stand. What it is I’ve been denied

and when.

Instead there is just a meander of words that turn on themselves like a Hegelian dream or a confused swarm of butterflies. A bundle of words that boils down to some vague future-tense or some sterilized verb beaten

into its predicate form.

I don’t suppose you can help me at all.

No they don’t say. I hear the flowers

growing from their lips.

But who will fry my eggs and button my shirt and loop the hooks of my mask behind my ears.  And who

most importantly

will peel all these ripe avocados.

I can hear the machine on the other end

like the humming of a motherboard

or the chugging of an engine.

Someday soon

I’ll emerge almost human.