Poem
What You Cross the Street to Avoid
Published in Volume 19 Issue 3 | Comments 0
You assume that a blind man can sing
and that he can afford a guitar.
You say, “Less is more”
to a woman whose children need new shoes.
You don’t listen to your daughter’s questions.
She stops asking them.
The one time I went without eating
my thoughts ran away from me.
Handed a bowl of soup, I felt its weight.
I nearly dropped it.
W.C. Handy’s song about St. Louis
doesn’t mention his empty belly
or how stiff his back was
from sleeping on cobblestones under a bridge.
He sang of a man whose heart
was a rock cast in the sea.
