Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Poem a Day: 23

Dear Friendly Target Employee

I appreciate your smile and the eye contact
as I make my way out of the store. I might
also cherish, in another setting (and at
an earlier age ... definitely at an earlier age),

your somewhat exuberant walk -- the
bounce in each of your steps as you
lift off your toes just a bit, launching
skyward. And your red shirt, which

definitely looks ironed, drapes stiffly
over your lanky (perhaps concave?)
chest, making me suspect you might be
a bit fragile, a tad vulnerable, despite

that leonine smile. But I also suspect
that it was your voice, loud and
commanding, I heard blasting over
the shoe racks, ten minutes ago, where

I stood examining the flats, that it
was your voice ordering an unseen
employee to "USE YOUR PA" and
"TAKE A BREAK," your voice

drilling like a warning bell into my
revery, your voice that must've moved
that gray-haired old man with the flat
bed cart into the next aisle and then

bam bam bam into the shelving,
like a frightened and disoriented bug
hitting the back wall of a kitchen
in front of a big black boot.


And, if I can be frank, your massive
beard and mustache, reaching like Noah's
(but vigorous and dark brown) halfway
down your hollow chest?  Well, that,

dear sir, that bouncing flap of hair --
it looks like a small beaver attached
to your grin, and I have to say that it
scares the everliving crap out of me.

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