THE OFFICE

The office where we sit in swivel chairs on carpet squares, tap at keyboards, wiggle mice and gaze at computer screens, was built where a mill had stood and men and women and their children laboured night and day. They walked through sooty streets to work, summoned by the wail of hooters, and ordered by their raucous voices when and how and why and where while hungrily the overseers watched for someone's bones to pick.
On the ruins of their lives we sip our teas and stretch our legs and say "the weather's bad".