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Column 161

Car Showroom

Intro by Ted Kooser
04.30.2008

I may be a lit­tle sap­py, but I think that almost every­one is doing the best he or she can, despite all sorts of obsta­cles. This poem by Jonathan Hold­en intro­duces us to a young car sales­man, who is try­ing hard, per­haps too hard. Hold­en is the past poet lau­re­ate of Kansas and poet in res­i­dence at Kansas State Uni­ver­si­ty in Manhattan. 

Car Showroom

Day after day, along with his placid
automobiles, that well-groomed   
sallow young man had been waiting for
me, as in the cheerful, unchanging
weather of a billboard—pacing
the tiles, patting his tie, knotting, un-
knotting the façade of his smile
while staring out the window.
He was so bad at the job
he reminded me of myself
the summer I failed
at selling Time and Life in New Jersey.
Even though I was a boy
I could feel someone else’s voice
crawl out of my mouth,
spoiling every word,
like this cowed, polite kid in his tie
and badge that said Greg,
saying Ma’am to my wife, calling
me Sir, retailing the air with such piety
I had to find anything out the window.
Maybe the rain.  It was gray
and as honestly wet as ever.  Something
we could both believe.

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We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©1985 by Jonathan Holden, whose most recent book of poetry is Knowing: New & Selected Poems, University of Arkansas Press, 2000. Reprinted from The Names of the Rapids, The University of Massachusetts Press, 1985, by permission of the author. First printed in Black Warrior Review. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.