A Position in Sales

An echoing “clop” on the door, the sound

of a horse slowly crossing a wooden bridge

at twilight. His hopeless voice goes

into a rhythmic spiel. My wife's

sympathetic one interrupts

as soon as decent. We don't want any.

I glimpse him trudging back down our

long, long driveway: just my age,

just as stout, slack-faced, the cloudlight

pale on his skin, which is

just the color of the flesh

of a well-baked potato.

I am reminded of a night forty years gone

when a drunk girl knocked at our door

late at night, a stranger to us,

and walked straight into my arms.

I held her as she wept and told

an unintelligible story: all that rose to clarity

was that she was desperately sorry:

sorry to intrude, sorry to weep,

sorry to exist.

The walls are fragile.

No suburban wall

will stop a bullet any more: if you hear shots

the basement is the place to be.

And yet with years the walls

are all too strong;

and they thicken,

thicken with time.