Homeless 1979

Towels draped inner windows;
the beige four-door of indistinct model
straddled two spaces in the Sears lot
emptied and dirtied from another day's big spending

before urban legends, she was a rumor;
illegible as wavy cursive
penciled on wrinkled paper
smudged - neglected - discarded

12:30 am, coldly autumn;
the fable, reality up-close

through windows I tried to see her;
huddled, folded into corners
of a cluttered back seat

towels as walls, bench seat as sofa;
an aching stomach and layered coats
were meals remembered;
embraces imagined

tears gripped my throat;
icy rain tore at
her cracked windshield
of ragged journey

pierced and paralyzed,
I understood nothing;
just the hopeless sadness
of seeing her,
homeless and hungry

Hutchinson, Kansas 1979