When Your Plate is Full

Engaging the meatball
by David Zinger

Another meatball tossed
on our overflowing
spaghetti-like plate of work.

Before forking into our crowded strands of work
yet another meatball is tossed on the pile
colliding with the meatball already there
precipitating an avalanche of meatballs
hurdling downwards in all directions at once.

If work is to nourish us we must say no
even when we are told, “it is just one more meatball.”

[Source: Assorted Zingers, a book of poems on workplace engagement by David Zinger, with great cartoons by John Junson]