A trip to my Island post office
Is like a church bean supper
Without the church
Without the supper

But possibly with a can of beans
Shipped from the mainland
By a friend who spotted the gift
In Bea & Ed’s Down East Feast catalogue

And thought of me

Notification comes as a green card
Worn, wrinkled, handed down over time
And placed amid junk in your postal box
That’s too small to house your gift

Card in hand means you get in line
There’s always a line, no matter the hour
There’s always a line when short-sightedness
Has nowhere to go but to short-handedness

To maintain order, to avoid anarchy
The only way to follow procedure
Is first to proceed, then to follow
Or sometimes the other way around

Inching your way to hand in the card
To be rewarded, to be blessed to exit
With a tangible proof (YOUR NAME HERE)
Someone acknowledges your existence

Like a human clothesline, we dangle united
The art of waiting involves airing, flapping
Birds gathered on a wire, watching for an opening
Paratroopers taking their turn to jump to freedom

A chance to be at one with my community
An opportunity to be classless and equal
All good neighbors on the same mission
Sharing all sorts of chats and grumbles

A chance to experience some catching up

Time for the news
“How are you doing?”
“Is that a pleasantry or inquiry?”

Time for the weather
“My knee says it’s going to rain.”
“So did mine. Got a new one. Titanium.”

Time for sports
“They’re not together anymore. She’s back with the harbormaster.”

There’s a hint of existentialism in the air
“This line is awfully slow this morning.”
“That’s just compared to life outside.”
“There’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Out of our hands, go with the flow.”

Without looking up from his newspaper
The gent in the Red Sox cap in front of me
Offers a jolt of wisdom
“To quote T. S. Eliot, ‘For us there is only the trying
—the rest is not our business.’”

15-minute parking
That’s what the sign says
In each slot in the post office lot
It’s also a sign that if God exists
He would wink at a mustache
Spray-painted on the Mona Lisa

The line creeps like a caterpillar
One postal clerk keeps disappearing
To take that green card on a treasure hunt
The other clerk is there for the anointing

Might as well comb through the catalogues
What seem to amount to a daily dozen
Trying to find something meaningful
Something provocative

Like determining the differences among
Artisanal, hand-crafted and home-spun
In Organic Or Else

With emphasis on local and lo-cal
Between Heaven and Health offers
Egg-scuse and side orders of Fakin’

For the kids,
There’s Madge & Harry’s Imaginaries
Or the Dog and Cat-alog
For the grown-ups,
There’s Fishing Well,
Or Flannel & Things

Most of my mail sadly consists
Of these shopping digests showing
Perfect people with the latest garb & gadgetry
They bear little resemblance to my reality
Or to any of us in my post office line
I’m betting none of them can quote T. S. Eliot