[We are high performers not normal not just performers but high ones we]

ISSUE: Fall 2012

We are high performers not normal not just performers but high ones we
perform things make papers smell like perfume we don’t order things other

people order things from us high performers quick learners we are highly creative
unusually industrious exceptionally conscientious good with people diligent
intelligent

we are high performers former high hopers on a high wire balancing a ream of
paper on our heads under us no net just the boss with her arms crossed in a knot

glasses fogged we think she is smiling yes the boss is definitely smiling she has finally
found a vein on her wrist that is thawed now she can plug herself in again we plug

away despite the plagues in other countries we are still in awe of the boss and the
law and all the dollars some of us have hallways that run like rivers just ahead of

all the collapsing buildings

Victoria Chang

Victoria Chang’s forthcoming book of poems, With My Back to the World, will be published in 2024. Her most recent book of poetry, The Trees Witness Everything (Copper Canyon, 2022), was named one of the Best Books of 2022 by the New Yorker and the Guardian. Her nonfiction book, Dear Memory (Milkweed, 2021), was named a favorite nonfiction book for 2021 by Electric Literature and Kirkus. OBIT (Copper Canyon, 2020) was named a New York Times Notable Book, a Time Must-Read Book, and received the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Poetry as well as the PEN/Voelcker Award. The Boss (McSweeney’s, 2013) won the PEN Center USA Literary Award and a California Book Award. Her other books of poetry are Salvinia Molesta (Georgia, 2008) and Circle (Southern Illinois, 2005). Chang has also received a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Chowdhury Prize in Literature.