hello

when the seventeenth
person said hello
and smiled at me
and then scurried
in the opposite
direction
in his and her
matching orange
smocks i was weary,
i was tired despite
it only being eight
o'clock in the morning.
and none of them knew,
not only in their
language, but in my
language too
where i could find
the right size screw
for the mailslot on
my door, follow me
they said, and i'll
try to find it. and
so i followed as
they spoke into
their crackling phones
trying to locate
the screw
specialist, through
the aisles of the
cavernous hardware
store, the overhead
lights bearing down,
lighting up the slick
slab floors painted
a bright citrus orange,
maybe i didn't need
a mailslot after all.