Something Beginning with P

Another new manager,
fourth in two years.
She’s smiling wildly now,
but in eight months time
she’ll sit in Reception
in her bare feet looking out
the window at the car park,
as though picking which Peugeot
to throw herself under.

We’ll hear rumours of
too many pills and too many
breakdowns and one day
she’ll be gone, leaving
a vacancy they’ll press
an audiologist to fill
because you don’t have
to be crazy to work here,
but by god it helps.

I think she moved to Brighton,
but she never came back
for her shoes. Sometimes
when I’m alone in the office
I brush off their dust and try them
for size. I’ve always wanted
to walk in the sun.