author’s note:

I am posting this poem in honor of Administrative Professionals Day (April 23).

Feel free to slip it into your boss’s “In” box.
 

CATHY CAFFEINE

This poem commemorates
the obscure child book character
Cathy Caffeine–

the tug boat that volunteered
to pull a skyscraper across the ocean
from Shanghai to Manhattan–

a proud prow willing to drink
galleons and galleons of coffee
in a valiant effort to keep
her steam pressure up.

No one ever noticed her–
despite the sun flag on her mast,
despite a heart
she had enlarged
so as to pump squall waters
from the furnace room.

No one ever heard her engine groan–
they only saw the skyscraper
sliding smoothly through seas
that bucked and brayed–

the edifice gliding
as if guided by a god–

but since no god
ever appeared before them,
people came to believe
the skyscraper might be
a god itself.

From such mass opinion,
Cathy Caffeine concluded
she had done
nothing of consequence–

       despite the pain
       in her main beam,
       a pain that ran
       from stern to bow–

she believed she followed
a monumental monument
even though
that momentary monument
always shadowed her.

The Cathy of this child book story
can be found all over the world–
can’t we see them?–the churn
of their propellers
gives the planet its spin.

© 2008, Michael R. Patton
dream steps
earnest audio