Bubble Wrap

Mid-morning delivery:
software manuals no one will read,
already obsolete.
She unpacks them dutifully,
stacks them with the others,
but the bubble wrap whispers of better uses.
Clear as water,
each pocket holding its small
portion of air, of possibility.

She smooths it flat,
folds it into quarters,
slides it into her drawer
between folders marked Urgent and Pending.

Lunch at her desk again,
salad in plastic,
email’s steady ping,
the bubble wrap from this morning’s delivery
calling like a siren.

She tears a strip,
begins the systematic meditation:
thumb and index finger,
pop by satisfying pop,
until Jackson from accounting
peers over the cubicle wall.

“Going for coffee,” she announces,
grabs her purse with studied casualness,
stuffs the evidence in her drawer.

Outside, she chooses sidewalks over shortcuts.
The chalk grid waits,
numbers bright as birthday cake,
and no one’s watching:
not the woman with her stroller,
not the delivery truck idling at the corner.

Her body decides before her mind catches up,
left foot finding square one,
and suddenly she’s airborne:
one-foot, two-foot, pepperbox, plop!
The rhyme returns like muscle memory,
her pencil skirt accommodating
this necessary archaeology.

Square eight achieved,
she turns with the same precision
she’ll use in the two o’clock meeting,
hops back through seven-six-five,
her shadow playing along
on the warming pavement.

A businessman passes,
pretends not to see her final landing,
the small triumph of completing
what nobody asked her to complete.

Back at her desk, coffee cooling,
she opens the drawer,
retrieves the folded square of bubble wrap.
Jackson’s gone,
the office hums its fluorescent tune.
She selects two bubbles near the edge,
presses with deliberate care:
pop, pause, pop.

The sound barely travels
past her cubicle walls,
this diminutive rebellion,
this unnecessary joy.

She saves the rest for tomorrow,
this thing that matters only
because it doesn’t matter at all.