New Poetry: “Work and Punishment” by Sara Cosgrove

When I returned home
from the interview
(the one that made sense),
I brought a bouquet.

I brought hope and a funny story.
I brought the beginning.

Months later,
when I returned home from work,
I brought details …
about my colleagues’ behavior,
about following me into the restroom,
about giving me strange tasks,
about their token-friends-with-disabilities stories.
Except their friends were smarter, sicker, and thinner than me.

I brought back trauma,
probably more than work is worth,
and my year of therapy
lasted longer than that job.

Sara Cosgrove is an award-winning journalist, disabled poet, and member of the Haiku Society of America. She is also an Associate Poetry Editor for Arcturus. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, The Seventh Quarry, Notre Dame Review, Gargoyle, Roi Fainéant, Great River Review, Meniscus, Frogpond, Autumn Moon Haiku Journal, Under the Basho, and several other literary journals and magazines.

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