I once got fired for being funny

                        when others were not,

                        maybe I was trying to be funny

                        and was not.

                        I once got fired for whispering

                        my name to a co-worker

                        after he whispered his to me,

                        they said it was my attitude.

                        I once got fired for wearing a plaid shirt

                        on assembly day when I was class president,

                        partly ‘cause my mother

                        only washed my white shirt on her schedule

                        and partly  ‘cause my teacher

                        wanted to install her pet as class president.

                        I once got fired for being an outsider,

                        but wait, wait,

                        that was actually every time I got fired.

Gene Goldfarb is a writer and poet living on Long Island in New York. Besides writing, his passions are traveling, movies, and reading. His poetry has appeared in Black Fox, SLANT, COG, Green Briar, Quiddity and elsewhere.