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Please note:  this is a fictional character.  Any resemblance between actual  persons or situations is purely coincidental.

Spectacular smile

Greets new employees

She’s your immediate best friend

–Genuinely welcoming?

–Adding to her horde?

 

Dressed to the nines

Every day, nary a hair astray

A study in superlatives,

The latest fashions

The shortest skirts

The tallest shoes

The furriest furs

The leatheriest leathers

Makeup thickly, evenly applied

Movie stars would kill for her applications

 

Her lunch crowd consists

Of assorted ill-dressed misfits

–Mother Theresa?

–A supernova among lo-watt bulbs?

She eats, bite for bite, as much as the most rotund,

Yet never gains an ounce.

Carefully excusing herself to the lady’s room

Post repast.

 

First to raise her hand when bosses need help

Insisting she be the one to do it

–Genuine altruist?

–helpers must fall under her direction?

 

Has an ex-husband who walked off

With another – again –

She was the one he walked off with

When he walked off on his first wife

He’s never paid a dime of child support

For any of his 4 kids

Too busy fucking females half his age

And putting things up his nose.

 

She lives at home again – after

A five year absence with her marriage –

With her elderly mother in poor health

And her two teenagers

–self-sacrificing to care for her widowed invalid mom?

–rent free and taxi service for her kids?

 

She has two teenagers

Rail thin

And fully committed to their herds

Often ill for school and myriad conscribed activities

To depressurize in the bariatric chamber

Of a cozy day with grandma

 

She’s witty

She’s funny

She’s indefatigable

She’s dependable

She drives fast

She tailgates

 

Her burnished image comes at a cost.

Dollars, tens of thousands of them, in debt

Card stacked upon card

She sells candy bars in the office

M-F, year after year, for her “kids’ field trips”

These pennies, nickels, and dimes keep her head

Above water, but just.

 

Mickey Mouse voice

In slowly articulated syllables

That go on, and on, and on

Every question must include

Every nuance,

As must every answer.

In meetings, the high esteem

In which she is held, mandates

That there are no interruptions.

 

She knows secrets, from far and wide,

Told for so many reasons

Some as units of power exchange

Some never meant to be shared, as

Per sworn vow – until they are

Casually bandied about with

The minions of her inner circle.

 

None rise against her

There is no place for foots’ purchase on

Her burnished, smooth walls.

Only two have spoken (aloud) contrarily of her

They were both on their way out –

As am I.