Poem for a Guy From Work

I am sorry for not listening when you told me about your mom;
Cancer is hard, and I was trying to eat my lunch. I am sorry
for not sticking up for you, and for nodding my head when
you told me you got seizures. Simple kindness is hard –
not just for me, but for everyone except you.
You, man of bug-eyed Boris Karloff stares,
of touching people from behind when you don’t expect
they’re not expecting you, of drinking two milks for lunch,
of telling the ladies over the intercom that you’ve just
cleaned the bathroom, so please be careful. Ashton up front
says that she’s scared of you. I say I am, too. What I don’t
say is I saw your mother the other day, hands wrapped
over your shoulders, eyes closed, giving you a blessing before
you wandered into work.

Jasey Roberts is a Creative Writing / Literary Studies double major from southwest Virginia.

Image by David S. Soriano, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons