Business Women

By the cappuccino filter, next door to the Armani store,
Stand a dozen business women, cooling heels upon the floor.
Tall stilettos tapping rhythm, painted nails the colour of blood,
Twelve ambitious business women taking five before the flood.

Armani suits like rooks in winter, gym-crunched buttocks clad in thongs,
Purple mouths on flashing i-phones, putting right a thousand wrongs.
Stand you there, poor unbeloved ones, drown your sorrows in caffeine,
Men will be usurped above you, in a too familiar scene.

Assistants creep down faceless corridors, faxes thwack like silent death,
Suits that cost a whole month’s salary, flashing by like winter breath.
Catching tubes and northern railways, homewards trudge to Coachman’s Run,
Heating supper in the kitchen, ironing, washing, to be done.

Copyright © Max Scratchmann. All Rights Reserved