Find It Your Fucking Self (a customer service poem) by Brad Hamlin

The old man
approached the bookstore
information desk

mumbled
some
thing …

He smelled of piss and cheap beer

and no one could help him

and the old man
wandered
throughout
the maze of books
old
new
boring
hot
cold
hopeful and hopeless
some with fragile soul
some with e
lectricity …

but he couldn’t find
what
he wanted
to find

and he wandered
back to the
desk

and still he smelled like
yesterday’s garbage

and still
no one helped him

until he shuffled out
the door
with no new books
old
used or otherwise.