Selling Happy

She’s a door to door sales person
Her bandaged feet shuffle the litter
Making ruts in the road with her toes
And filling them back up later
on the backs of wrappers found
She’s scrawling her fantasies
so she can visualize a destination
On her little map of dreams
her silence is for tears
She cannot share
Because she is so strong
They always told her so
And the strong carry it all
so she hoisted it up
And drags it behind her
Sun-dried luggage filled
with injured souvenirs
Collected on misadventures
visiting all the broken and famished
selling contentment, budding seeds
Little promises of an abundant garden
So that even though she doesn’t,
Hopefully someone will eat
And she wonders why
Smiling becomes hard
And her sanguine jargon
becomes a sales pitch
She can easily resist
She lowers her arms
and admits
She doesn’t want to sell this
If she cannot afford it
She turns, she turns again
circling to find a path not treaded
Filtering the road for change fallen
saving it all for her own garden
those feet beat a familiar rhythm
and on she goes
All her baggage in tote
Winding the highways like a ghost
clutching her little map,
Ever searching.