There are poems about lovers
and parents and children and friends,
poems about strangers and bakers
and even people who deliver the post.
But there are no poems
about colleagues.
It sounds unpoetic
and slightly awkward
just to write it.
Yet we spend more time
with them than with anyone,
these unchosen people
who share our days.
So this poem is for you,
my coworkers,
the wonderfully random
ingredients that keep mashing up
beautiful things.
It’s my love letter to your talent
and my tribute
to your unheralded art
of getting things done.
It’s my ode to the everyday,
to the half of my waking day,
to the way you turn work
into play.
I didn’t realize until the pandemic
when I didn’t see you
in person anymore
that this poem
was written years ago
and left to wonder,
as poems sometimes do,
why it took this long
to set it free.