poem of the day 10.27.09

what can you say to
something like this?

she comes in a lot
she bothers me
has me look up rental laws
and brain teasers that she has
printed up illegibly
on sheets of loose leaf paper.
when i pass her in the morning
usually hungover
she makes it a point to say hello to me.
she knows my name
but i do not know hers
i have a database full of millions of people
but i have not made it a point
to look up her name
she bothers me about computers
thinks that i know a lot about computers
i tell her that i can turn a computer off and on
and she looks at me like i am lying
which is fine
because most humans think that i am lying
she is sitting in this place right now
talking loudly on her phone
something about a procedure
i don’t know because i am trying
my best to ignore her as always
but she says that the doctors found
two of them on her ovaries
and a couple of them in other places
her voices begins to get tight
she says that they want her to get
a hysterectomy
i can tell the person on the other end
of the phone doesn’t know
what a hysterectomy is
she repeats it loudly
a hysterectomy
and some of the other people in here
begin to look
and she tells the person on the phone
that they have to take her womanly insides out
that she will not be able to have any kids
then she tells the person
to hold on while she cries
she cries for a couple of minutes
then gets up and comes over to me
and asks me if i have any tissues
i tell her that i have a whole box of them
and i hand her two.