I ran into her yesterday A penny pincher plied with cheap pilsner What’s cheap? She told me the daily drink specials I was looking at her She smoked basic cigarettes And had a knockoff Coach bag Cubic Zirconiums A peacock scarf bunched around her neck She had the sparkle of someone who had given up She had the resolution of an old television that still worked She was without want She spent her words like she spent her money Tightly, but impact-fully Annie wasn’t much to gaze at Until you looked closer If you leaned in, real near She’d show you her magic She didn’t acknowledge me But she knew I had nothing else to look at She sighed the capital letter of the sentence that followed “God don’t care about none of this shit And what you see ain’t what you get He made diamonds from ghosts and dust Don’t believe your lying eyes Don’t try” We were on the 20 bus last week going south He had on his church clothes Fresh applied Brut masking smell A sambuca bender To get the job you gotta smell the part I watched him drop nickels and dimes In the fare machine Not a crinkled dollar to be found In his couch pressed suit Broke, broke as fuck He reclined on the bench Knee over knee like an executive ‘let me level with you’ conversations 'where the rubber meets the road' conversations He opened a day old newspaper Odds are he was reading the sports section He spoke to me like he knew something I didn't Of how to be successful...how to be a man I called bullshit promptly Pointing to his unpolished shoes He didn’t get defensive But he humbled a bit “I am trying to get my life back on track Lost my kids and my wife and my job My condo and my Beemer- I am back, though! I still have my pride and my will to succeed” Two seats back, an old sickly man interjected: "Maybe you should have lost those first." And I saw a boy on the bench during recess Watching the other kids play One shoe untied, glasses askew Open eyed, but detached A picture of contentment if you know how to look I watched an army of adults approach One by one they spoke quietly to him a soft hand on his shoulder, a kneeling down soft voice To each, he replied with a smile A slight shaking of his head "No, thank you." He said. Would you like to play football with the boys?
There It is.
Thank you