S.O.S. Pads

mom said
do we need anything else?
and I thought I needed something to scrub my sink and bathtub
I asked her if she had any S.O.S. pads
She said check under the sink
and I got some out of the blue and yellow box

I thought…
'Somebody's job depends on the success of these S.O.S. pads'
It's probably some guy who works in the offices of Clorox
And he's the main guy in charge of the promotion and sales
of S.O.S. pads

I can see him on the phone in his cubicle
"Yeah Bob, it's a real good product, stands for 'save our saucepans'
sells real well. Goes back to the 50's, one of our many fine products."

And I imagined that in the
back of his mind
this man was unhappy.

That he felt that he was wasting his time, devoting it to selling these little balls of steel wool full of coagulated, blue bleach

That he was trapped

And that more than once he had entertained the notion, in the quiet of his office space there in the Clorox headquarters, of taking his own life.

And just for a moment I felt a pang of despair shoot through me, like I could feel him there across the anonymous miles

S.O.S.