Something Borrowed

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 money enough for the cleaners.
She will take out her glasses, and there
in the bookstore, she will thumb
over my poems, and 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.