No ode to door-to-door strategies
The door-to-door salesmenIn their cheap suits
Their evangelist grinHangs from a thread
They are too youngAnd haven’t been to schoolwith their straw-colored hair
And green eyes
Their training book And their rehearsed speech
Fake leather briefcase Full of free samplesOf something
They never heard of Willy Loman
And wouldn’t know pathos
If it stabbed them directlyon the chest I am from H and A
Have you ever heardof H and A?
He says withoutdropping the grin
Impervious to
My disappointed look Three flights of stairs for this?
I say to himBut half the words fall shortAs the door slams
I don’t have time to think
About his life
As a sucession of our slamming doors
Forever locked on different sides
Both them and I
By that great wonderFree enterprise (Montevideo, Oct 3rd, 2010)