BILL MILLER

He came to the feed mill where
my father worked but I could
tell the first time I saw him
he could not possibly be
a farmer. Not with that red
convertible, the hat tipped
at a jaunty angle, the tiparillo
clenched in his teeth. I admired
his loose-limbed climb up
the office steps, his effortless
way of making himself fully present.
He's a salesman, Dad said, and
a good one. Unlike our customers,
he rarely commented on the weather.
He talked baseball and cars,
told mildly off-color jokes.

We were country.
He was city.

I was fifteen.
I considered possibilities.