Cindy King
Decree
When a Guest positions his hands
around an Associate’s throat,
applies pressure to her windpipe,
let it be known as diplomacy.
When an associate cries in the Team
Leader’s Lounge, positions her arms around
She-of-the-Pencil-Skirt or He-of-the-Clip-On-Tie,
let it be known as coercion.
When an Associate eats a peanut butter
sandwich in the Team Member Lounge,
head positioned in the cot of her arms,
let it be known as bacchanalia.
Sometimes when we work, duty
is a martini with too little vermouth,
a driver without loft, a canoeing cigar.
How will we ever love each another?
When an Associate ascends, passes
a Guest who is descending the escalator,
let their eyes meet:
this will be known as democracy.
Cindy King's work has appeared or is forthcoming in Callaloo, North American Review, African American Review, American Literary Review, jubilat, The Louisville Review, Sou’wester, Blackbird, Cortland Review, River Styx, TriQuarterly, The Collagist, Cimarron Review, Black Warrior, Folio, Barrow Street, New American Writing, and elsewhere. She has received a Tennessee Williams Scholarship from the Sewanee Writers' Conference and the Agha Shahid Ali scholarship from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Currently, she lives in Utah, where she is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Dixie State University and editor of Route 7 Review and The Southern Quill.
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