This flits around (like a cicada?) and avoids settling on an image. The strong first nine words are followed by the unneeded "is what," which signals the poem's strategy of frequently drawing the reader's attention away from what it has just said to something else.
The important interaction with the brother turns on an abstract word: "demure." The first mention of the store is abstract, focusing on "vanity and loneliness." The end is abstract: hope and change. None of that reaches this reader as strongly as the first nine words or the flaking rust.
Instead of being told the man's face is "like" cast iron and that other (living) faces are like shiny steel, I want to understand that from seeing rust flaking at his lips (my favorite line here) and the way the store lights hit the face of the shopper he's addressing.
The flitting and abstraction are clearly intentional, but my reaction is all I can offer.
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