The work of a speechwriter

You would think we corporate types

would be the most concerned with how

the words sound as they dress the ideas

and erect the paragraphs that emerge

from the executive mouth in the hope

of meeting with, mating with, first

the ear then the head then the heart.

And we are, concerned that is, but it’s

not the first thing because the first thing

is always will it sell to the boss, will it

sell to the boss’s boss, will it sell

the executive VP as this fragile ship

sails uncertain seas before docking

in the CEO’s office, and even then

no port is ever safe or secure, even CEOs

have bad days and take it out on the speech

and it flies its way back as an act

of humiliation. But first it has to make port.

We sit in our cubicles and are told not to be

sound-bitish, read the latest New Yorker

because that’s what speechwriters do even

if was never the same after William Shawn

but it’s the ideas of reading it, you see, and

Foreign Affairs, too, and The New York Times

Book Review, completing the professional trinity

of right and impressive thinking. We gather

each Friday at 4 p.m. precisely, usually

in one of the cubicles, for the cynical hour.

We agree among ourselves, every Friday

at 4 p.m., that it might not get any better

than this. And it doesn’t.

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