Читать книгу Kindest Regards - Ted Kooser - Страница 31

Father

Theodore Briggs Kooser

May 19, 1902–December 31, 1979

You spent fifty-five years

walking the hard floors

of the retail business:

first, as a boy playing store

in your grandmother’s barn,

sewing feathers on hats

the neighbors had thrown out,

then stepping out onto

the smooth pine planks

of your uncle’s grocery —

SALADA TEA in gold leaf

over the door, your uncle

and father still young then

in handlebar mustaches,

white aprons with dusters

tucked into their sashes —

then to the varnished oak

of a dry goods store —

music to your ears,

that bumpety-bump

of bolts of bright cloth

on the counter tops,

the small rattle of buttons,

the bell in the register —

then on to the cold tile

of a bigger store, and then one

still bigger — gray carpet,

wide aisles, a new town

to get used to — then into

retirement, a few sales

in your own garage,

the concrete under your feet.

You had good legs, Dad,

and a good storekeeper’s eye:

asked once if you remembered

a teacher of mine,

you said, “I certainly do;

size 10, a little something

in blue.” How you loved

what you’d done with your life!

Now you’re gone, and the clerks

are lazy, the glass cases

smudged, the sale sweaters

pulled off on the floor.

But what good times we had

before it was over:

after those stores had closed,

you posing as customers,

strutting in big, flowered hats,

those aisles like a stage,

the pale mannequins watching;

we laughed till we cried.