She had a nametag that identified her, and I began to wonder about the rest of her life...

MAV

At the grocery store by my house,

surrounded by magazines touting celebrity breakups

and chewing gum in obscene varieties,

she mindlessly checks out every customer who steps into her lane.

“Did you find everything okay?”

she says dutifully with vague commitment,

even though I know she was trained to say this

and would be reprimanded for breaking the “did you find” protocol.

Once I thought of asking her “So, Mav, what’s your life like?”

and I imagined her launching into a colorful story

about hurts and disloyalties that explain her worn-out face,

and make me embarrassed that I asked.

I think also of the man I see watering his weeds

and a few spotty patches of grass at the house around the corner;

wondering if he is the victim of a tragic loss or torturous infidelity,

or perhaps no real explanation for his hunched shoulders and grimacing look.

Or the single older woman who is pulled

by her yapping dog early mornings past our house,

dutifully picking up the gifts with rubber-gloved hands

that are gifts because they are not surprises on the living room floor.

I sometimes walk the hallways of airports

wondering about the next person I see,

each one secretly hoping to be stopped and asked to tell about

the pieces that fit together to make the picture of their lives.

Chuck Collins