How Are You Doing?

As much as you deserve it,

I wouldn’t wish this

Sunday night on you—

not the Osco at closing,

not its two tired women

and shaky security guard,

not its bin of flip-flops

and Tasmanian Devil

baseball caps,

not its freshly mopped floors

and fluorescent lights,

not its endless James Taylor

song on the intercom,

and not its last pint of

chocolate mint ice cream,

which I carried

down Milwaukee Ave.

past a man in an unbuttoned

baseball shirt, who stepped

out of a shadow to whisper,

How are you doing?

Copyright Credit: Reprinted from Barrow Street, Winter, 2005, by permission of the author. Copyright © 2005 by Rick Snyder.

Source: 2005