My two-year-old niece
exclaiming, KETCHUP
I WANT KETCHUP
in her sleep
at the drive-thru
gives me hope
that each of our priorities
will surface at just 
the right moment

and our most prescient needs
will be met, even when 
we are no longer awake
to voice them.
                        

First, take everything out of the box
right before you have to teach English
to a bossy, six-year-old Chinese girl.
Spend enough time laying out the guts
that you have to rush to the computer
to make it to class on time. Work.
 
After the allotted time is up, focus
on the different-but-similar task
of constructing something concrete
out of unfamiliar parts. Don’t wait
for your spouse to get home.
 
Next, look in every bag and fold
for the instructions — except for
the one they’re in. Start snapping
pieces into place, until you realize
you missed a spot. Find instructions.
 
Then, flip to a page in the booklet
that skips what (you think) you’ve already
accomplished. Check the numbers
on the screws, match “FRONT”
to “FRONT,” but don’t read the part
about keeping things loose until
everything’s in place. Don’t pay any
attention to the fact that the backrest
and the seat were supposed to be attached
to each other before you secured the arms
and the heavy, metal plate to the bottom
of the chair. Realize your “mistake.”
 
As reason begins to rear its wise head,
push any thought of undoing the work
you’ve done out of your mind, and forge ahead
with what you’ve got. Flip the leather
cushion onto a makeshift table devised
of barstools you and your poor spouse
sometimes use for eating dinner. Slide
the backrest, upside down, into “place”
beneath the seat, using your feet
to leverage the thing to the right height,
since the barstools aren’t low enough.
 
Consider, for a moment,
you’re doing this the hard way.
 
Then seize the Allen wrench, and repeat
righty-tighty, left-loosey as you bend
almost double to thread each screw into
each hole in each side of the upside-down
chair. Twist and bend until your neck
aches and your head spins and sweat
drips down your nose and finally,
it holds together on its own. Use the corner
of your three-hundred-dollar smartphone
in its twenty-two-dollar case to hammer
the plastic screw caps flush with
the plastic arm supports, because
what else could it possibly be good for?
 
After wiping the sweat from your brow
and attempting to stretch the kink
from your spine, heave the chair
off the barstools and set it as gently
as possible onto the gas lift apparatus
attached to the rolling base, only
to realize the precariousness of its position.
Ignore all the scenes of people injuring
themselves by falling off (or through)
poorly assembled office chairs running
through your head and sit right down
on that bad boy to lock the pole in the hole.
 
Finally, and with much difficulty,
roll the chair (with you in it) out
of the inconveniently tight space
in which you decided to assemble
your brand new office chair and behind
your desk across the room, just
as your live-in helper returns.
 
Don’t show them this poem.