The Homestead Inside

He's standing there, in front of the class, short and pudgy, in his glasses and his dark gray pin stripe suit, his thinning blond-gone-white hair and his pink complexion. He speaks corporate words that are not important, and I've heard them all before.

But when I look at him, I see where he's from, like the smell of him is a place, even though I can't smell him: a field somewhere in the midwest, on a farm maybe, with sunshine on it, living green with yellow flowers, the sky so blue you can taste it.

I wonder if he knows that he has such a place inside him, and I hope he visits it sometimes, when the corporate words turn to trash on his tongue.