Selecting a Reader

I like how this poem imagines the reader.

I wonder about you, too. :)  Are you in your kitchen, propping your elbows on the counter over a laptop? 

Sitting at your office at lunch?

Hanging out in your basement with a squirmy toddler on your lap?

Slamming your hand on the desk and yelling, "HOGWASH!!"

I'd love to see that...but, on with the poem, for cryin' to Pete.

Selecting a Reader
by Ted Kooser

First, I would have her be beautiful,
and walking carefully up on my poetry
at the loneliest moment of an afternoon,
her hair still damp at the neck
from washing it.  She should be wearing
a raincoat, an old one, dirty
from not having enough money for the cleaners.
She will take out her glasses, and there
in the bookstore, she will thumb
over my poems, then put the book back
up on its shelf.  She will say to herself,
"For that kind of money, I can get
my raincoat cleaned." And she will.