Poem: "Paean to the Paperclip" at "Doubleback Review"

Anything I've had published online but which hasn't ended up in one of my books is like a message I've written, sealed up in a bottle, and still out at sea awaiting discovery. So there's something especially pleasing/rewarding when the message/poem surfaces on another island/website that gives it another chance to be read. And so I'm deeply thankful to Doubleback Review, a publication which focuses on reprints. In DR's latest issue, they've resurfaced my "Paean to the Paperclip," a poem which is -- small surprise here -- part of a larger work-in-progress reflecting my time in Corporate America. Will that themed collection ever get done? Maybe after my Vincent Price book and my villanelle series. Until then...

Paean to the Paperclip

If Corporate America has karma

then reincarnation follows thereafter

and we’ll all return as office supplies: 

some as staplers to double pin-prick 

with hairbreadth metal

that traps in collapse; 

some as brads to puncture

before unfolding robot wings 

unseen below, 

some as prong fasteners 

reaching through pre-made holes 

for their own metal straightjackets,

some as bulldog clips,

some as butterfly clamps,

some as ravenous hole punchers. 

I myself hope to come back

as a paperclip

serene in its simplicity, 

a single wire curled into two

steel tongues 

like a CFO’s infinity 

which, when bent out of shape,

still functions well enough

to unlock a pair of handcuffs.

This poem was published in Doubleback Review in April 2025. The accompanying (color-enhanced) artwork comes courtesy of Ray_Shrewsberry at Pixabay.