In the Mazes of Provosts
"You and Animal Research
are the cause of all my problems,"
my father's boss would say when
he would ascend to the labyrinth
of vice provosts and assistant deans
for annual reviews of the budget and
condition of Academic Computing,
the department my father oversaw
at Northeastern University.
It never seemed to bother him.
Rather, he found it funny;
I think he enjoyed the distinction.
My father never liked administration. And
when he got sick, a bad man named Stuckey
had arrived to make things unpleasant.
If he hadn't died, I think my father
would have hung on a while longer
for the tuition benefits, waited
until my sister was nearly finished, and
gone back with relief and some joy
to programming computers,
the thing he truly liked to do.
— Matin FitzPatrick
VoxPoetica encourages Takoma Park and Silver Spring residents to submit their work. E-mail your poems to poet@takoma.com, or mail them to the Takoma Voice / Silver Spring Voice, 6935 Laurel Ave., suite 207, Takoma Park, MD 20912. The editor of VoxPoetica is Don Berger, Poet Laureate of Takoma Park.
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