READ A POEM
The Policy Writer
by E.F. Schraeder
The entitlement to bereavement leave
for an immediate relative is three days.
Three full days to mourn your mother, wife,
or child, but “a mom” is irrelevant.
So grieve and return rested. Your inbox awaits.
We share your loss and will send a card
signed by everyone, intentionally tasteful,
appropriately unemotional, optimistically secular.
The Company also respects your right to illness,
so with that in mind, your first sick day deducts
automatically from your paid vacation accrual,
and the next day from your earned sick leave.
Then take as much time from the 1 day earned
every 30 days with a maximum of 5 per year you need.
Feel better. Don’t forget to file the form
for any dates you have been, or will be, ill.
Our goal is to provide employees a fun,
supportive atmosphere where everyone feels
respected. So please, no flip flops or tank tops
in the workplace. Jiggle makes us look sleazy.
“The Policy Writer" by E.F. Schraeder from Chapter Eleven. Partisan Press, 2018. Used by permission of the author.
Ethicist, poet and speculative fiction writer
E.F. Schraeder holds an interdisciplinary doctorate emphasizing applied ethics and social justice issues. Dr. Schraeder’s work has appeared in
Mobius: The Journal of Social Change,
The Mystery Weekly Magazine, Terror Politico and other journals and anthologies. Dr. Schraeder has taught gender studies, humanities and philosophy and worked in the nonprofit sector, fundraising for grassroots organizations. Dr. Schraeder currently serves as contributing editor at an animal advocacy webcomic and facilitates writing workshops. Current projects include a queer monster’s coming-of-age novella and a full-length manuscript of poems.
WRITE A POEM
Write a poem about an ancestor you never knew or about a member of your family not yet born.