Equality

Equality


The other day I went to the store.

The old kind where people stop and talk,

where the vegetables frequently come, from less than 5 miles away,

and we still number fewer than one thousand, after 21 years.


Having been to an interview,

I still wore my dress clothes, a suit coat and tie.

Disguised as an indigenous species,

from a world, other than my own.


Reaching the door I held it for a man,

as he thanked me, I noticed his surprise,

intense gratitude, and emotional eyes.


realizing that he was homeless in his tattered clothes,

I understood that he had expected no courtesy

and that I had no conditions for offering it.


We both smiled and he thanked me,

with warmth, appreciation, genuine gratitude,

as only the best of men in any clothes

always remember to do.