There is a Man down the street with a funny eye He sits in front of his shop, hoping that I’ll walk by and buy a diet pepsi a bottled water a bag of freaking chips anything.
But I don’t buy from the Man with the funny eye I don’t know why I don’t just stop in and settle. Thank God Sammy has his store just a little closer just across the street but it opens later and Thank God that the corner store is available at all hours but to get to it I need to walk by the shop His shop.
He doesn’t say anything He just Stares. Or he doesn’t. Sometimes he sits outside the shop sipping coffee or smoking a cigarette I hear He likes to break up fights, but He never starts them He wants to teach me Arabic and I want to learn but I avoid his shop all the same.
Sometimes I cut a zig-zag pattern across the street from sidewalk to sidewalk just to maneuver myself around the shop of the Man with the funny eye so that I can get to the corner store without walking by. But I know He still sees me at least some of the time at least once.
I just know I’ve hurt Him at least once. I’ll walk into His shop and sit down and have a chat buy a diet pepsi a coffee and a pack of cigarettes
A short poem I wrote about a shopkeeper I met on my street while living in Egypt