Keep Lists

 

Keep Lists

No paper could be taken off the floor,

so scraps were torn theatrically

and tossed in plastic bins:

contraband confetti scattered

in the name of confidentiality - 

but we committed house numbers

and postcodes to our memories,

browsed Google Maps and bus times,

wrote things down in breaktime notebooks;

looked for patterns in their spending,

for political donations or the papers 

that they took. We built up profiles,

checked their local papers’ websites

for photos showing how they looked,

obituaries of relatives we could obliquely

reference and listen for the slight

catch in their breath before we moved on

to the next stage in the bullet-pointed script

our bosses called Real Conversations.

Others copied out the letters in their names,

reshaped them into glyphs we ripped

between their hang-up and the next shriek

through our headsets set us copying

again. No paper could be taken

off the floor. In India, the management banned pens.