The UPS Store

I started the poem by the same title as the photo after Christmas a few years ago.  After some follow-up editing, I'm ready to share it with you  for today.  Hope you like it.

The UPS Store

Your grandmother was in the UPS Store today. 
She brought cheerful chatter
     and two carefully wrapped gifts
     for packing and shipping. 
The clerk placed the packages on the scale
     with a folded corrugated cardboard box
     slightly larger than your presents. 
Your grandmother
     fumbled with a slip of paper
     with your address displayed in elderly scribble,
     and hid a tremble in taking money from her purse for shipping
     and the exorbitant rate for packing. 
It seemed simpler for her to pay UPS  
     than trying to find a proper box, wrestle with tape,
     and locate a bag of weightless white peanuts.
     (Someone I know calls them “ghost farts.”) 
Another clerk did a weigh and pay for a lady with a Barbie bus,
     and a man who used his cell phone to remember an address, 
     while your grandmother and her clerk discussed a friend’s health,
     and the route the presents would take to reach you.
While watching your grandmother loving you,
     I prayed you receive your gifts
     wrapped in her love
     without thinking,
     "doesn’t she know I already have one of these,” or
     “I wonder why she never remembers my size.”

Dan W. Moore