...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XA2anxuU8s

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She sat with a sorry posture

on the curb over 2nd avenue;

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her knees bunched,

childlike,

against the recesses 

of her chest,

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her elbows 

draped across them 

like garlands 

over stairs, with a 

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softly smoldering cigarette

perched between her fingers - 

its ember glowing 

in faint defiance 

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against the dampness in the air. 

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It was wet, slushy,  

as the winter 

thawed to run off 

that ran the slow groove

        of the gutter. 

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It was hard to see her face 

beneath the shelter of her hood, 

beneath the layers of rotten 

denim, beneath the frayed, 

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wet edges

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of caked, 

and cracking fabric.

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A car would pass.

It’d throw slush 

against the hem of her jeans,  

into the laces of her shoes -

muddying her brackish 

silhouette - still 

        she wouldn’t move. 

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Occasionally, she’d look to the sky;

she’d raise the cigarette to her lips, 

wipe road spatter from where

it’d splashed against her cheek.

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Her hair would emerge. 

Her chin would show.

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Her cuff would lift.

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There was a collection of cheap hairbands

coiled around one of her wrists: 

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faded pink, 

baby blue, 

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heirlooms.

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