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Letter of Resignation

The day before I quit a job everything becomes very peaceful.

I can hear weevils chewing out the insides of trees miles away.

I watch the skin form on a pitcher of cream.

The noises of people at the lunch table are like the birth of stars.

An enormous gulf of understanding and floortiles separates me from them.

I sit here and formulate a concise and intelligent response

to their false assertion

that people who like spicy food can’t taste anymore.

The spicy element is entirely separate from taste,

the way a man eating a bowl of cinnamon-sugared nettles

would have two distinct reactions.

I pieced this together with no training in science.

I am also, it should be noted, not that interested in where I am going.

All I ask is that the women across the alley take off their clothes

and pose suggestively on their porch.

This office was designed to be pleasant

not the charnel house of lies and insinuations

you have made it.

You never know when someone is looking at you

and thinking horrible thoughts.

Goodbye.

I won’t think about you when I’m not here

which is the worst thing that could happen to a human

besides torture.

I’m telling you this because you obviously have no marketable skills.

Matthew Rohrer

American Literary Review

Volume 13, Number 1

Spring 2002