Managerial — Summary

Dave BontaCheerful

morning at the office dinner at the office out back to take some air and the moon in a bag

Learn Poems app

Try the Learn Poems app

Everything from the website trainer, and more: new exercises, voice recording and sharing, reminders, quick review.

The poem is a tiny snapshot of a workday that swallows everything. The first two lines are flat and repetitive: morning at the office, dinner at the office. There's no mention of home or of time passing, so the speaker seems to have been there all day and well into the night. Even the title, "Managerial," suggests a life run by schedules and duties.

Then the speaker steps out back for some air, a small act of escape. What they find there is the moon, but it arrives "in a bag." That odd image can be read a few ways. Perhaps the moon is something the speaker has taken away like a bit of shopping or takeaway food, or perhaps it's glimpsed through a trash bag or hangs there looking as ordinary as litter. Either way, even something wondrous gets filed alongside the mundane.

The mood is quiet, wry, and a little weary. The speaker doesn't complain, but the short lines and dry tone hint at how work can shrink the world, leaving only a thin sliver of beauty to notice.

Read also

More by Dave Bonta

All poems
ContemplativeDave Bonta

Fairy Bells

Prosartes lanuginosa Their ringing isn’t obvious; you need the ear of an anchorite to find them.
CheerfulDave Bonta

Homunculus

Within my mind a mind I long to tame— a left boy, a little Hercules, the king of ham.
«Managerial» — poem summary Dave Bonta | PoemShip