I am, some might say, a vessel of travails,
a repository, cybersecure, of culture and status
reports. I remember the hoop skirt and savings
banks, the fraudulent tonics and numbers
transposed. Something akin to rebar inside me
dares not bend. Refractory, some might say.
The committee thinks with its cilia, whose members
have abandoned their sons at ballfields. Aware
of the cost differential, my industry prefers apology
to amends. In the breakroom, with its purring
thermostat and packets of salt, colleagues accrete
to me. Someone walks in with a price-biting
cheesecake. After the party, one by one they grasp
my hand, then station me next to the kill switch.

About the Author
Alan Elyshevitz is the author of a collection of stories, The Widows and Orphans Fund (SFA Press), and three poetry chapbooks, most recently Imaginary Planet (Cervena Barva). His poems have appeared in River Styx, Nimrod International Journal, and Water ̴ Stone Review, among many others. Winner of the James Hearst Poetry Prize from North American Review, he is also a two-time recipient of a fellowship in fiction writing from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.