Gregg Mosson

To a Co-Worker (While Drinking a Beer)

"Be the change you want to see in the world."
--Mahatma Gandhi

Driving to work, I'm trying to steer
toward rational disappointment with the world;
let's not conduct a discussion

now. Outside our office
sparrows dive-bomb for scraps;
their March songs are sustaining, exploding with cheer,

while behind the horizon, container ships
spider across the earth's oceanic breasts
to the tune of calculated hopes and fears.

And who am I? A soloist singing
from a divine score, as contend both shills and seers?
My aria begins at five to head to work.

Tonight I hope she calls—or that I do.
I make frozen pizza, beans and salsa on the side.
I read Gandhi in a nostalgic dream.

So you have a new wife, baby boy almost here,
and a different tale—I wish you well—one Caruso
to another, waving clearly as the fog rolls in.