“Sketches of Desk Life, Afternoon”

    The raven perches on my desk, peeking out at me over the tip of my laptop. His
eye is bright and curious in its resin socket. He does not judge me, nor does he mock my
efforts. He looks to see what I’m doing, reading the intensity on my face. He doesn’t
mind that I stare past him out the window; he knows that his outline is present, a sun
spot in negative. The raven is dramatic, bare black against the bright shroud of
muslin curtain. His shoulders are eager, his beak sharp, and his glare unwavering. I used
to love Halloween.

    There is a glass bowl on my desk. It is small, small enough for a tea light to fully
illuminate its etched designs, tossing measured shadows onto the pensive curtain behind
it; shadows that net the urgent pile of papers on my desk. The bowl is Virgin Mary Blue,
a shade so pure in any light that I am humbled to sit before it. I should kneel. It holds a
computer cable, and a penny.

    Half of a purple goblet lingers behind the screen of my computer. I found it at an
antique store. It looked more despondent than its elegant cousins. Empty, dark and
broody; elegant and misunderstood, relegated to the wall at the dance. I took it
home to place it here, where the light can change its moods and unlimber its hues.
Purple, blue, the colors of an oil spill on pavement, slick, noncommittal, and bruised.
It turns giddy in the noon light. It is solemn when it rains. This cup will not
pass before me, no matter how fervent my prayers. Three blue marbles and a key are in
its keeping.

    The gargoyle protects the blue bowl. He is perpetually surprised to discover
himself made of resin. No one has scraped the earth bare for his making. No one has
carved him with vengeful hands. He is plastic, poured into a mold, and he has two
thousand twins. He threatens to hurl his weight at me in the attitude of his half-furled
wings. He does this every day at dawn, whether his backdrop is rain or snow, heaven or
hell. He bides his time, consorting with the blue bowl, disdaining the raven’s
wisdom, ignoring the royal goblet. He should be holding down some of my unruly
papers, but I don’t have the heart to assign him such a menial task. He growls incessantly.


    So many of the people I have loved and hated and used and miss are recorded like
tracks set in limestone a million years ago, bristling out of an address holder I took from
my old job. I can recount a shaft of experience with each name, with each crossed out
number and replacement number and sticky-note appendage. I measure my life not in
coffee spoons, but in the degree of the fading of the ink on these cards. Once placed, a
person is never stricken from this record. The address holder sits on the back of my desk
in front of the window, collecting business cards and dust, its memories sharp teeth,
unfiled. It only holds my past.