Even If

If in the past you had patronized the sandwich shop where I was 

once employed and baked every single loaf of bread or the pharmacy 

where I stocked each product neatly on the shelves and answered 

customers' questions while standing all day on concrete floors 

in cheaply made shoes from the discount store while being paid 

poverty wages in exchange for my efforts and the many hours of my life 

I'll never get back which I would have spent engaged in far more fulfilling 

and worthwhile pursuits had I been similarly blessed at birth as yourself

I would have greeted you with a friendly smile and a cheery hello 

and asked how I could help you as I always did when anyone entered 

I'd have recognized you but I would never have behaved unprofessionally

but even if you would have thought me to be the most compelling woman 

you'd ever met and we had struck up a conversation about 

Shakespeare or Pinter or ancient civilizations, their languages and history

amazed to discover we had too many interests in common to count it wouldn't 

have mattered as our respective worlds are so far afield from each other

After I'd made your sandwich to sate your hunger or found what you were 

searching for to relieve the symptoms of the malady you were suffering 

you would simply have thanked me and paid for your purchase 

before walking out the door...nothing more