Thoughts of a Copy Center Attendant

11/10/2010

I am taped upon the wall like so many scribbled notes,

Once important, long forgotten…

A phone number, the price of lamination in 1992,

An old account code for the College of Family Life,

And the serial number for an old copy machine: GYA 736718.

I am a fixture here, a memory.

I am in the handwriting, I am in the changes.

I am in 1/3 of the billing statements,

And the other 2/3—created by those I taught to create.

I am so much a part of the sound of the sheets being fed to the printer

That I am lost in the sound… myself being fed to the system.

I am to be heated, inked, and set to dry, along with all the rest.