attending irving street

attending irving street
for the homeless man who lived there until last weekend

i would tell your story if i knew it and so imagination will have to
fill in the gaps...the gaps between you having a mother and being
wrapped in a blanket similar to the only one you ended up owning
the gaps between your favorite color blue and pistachio icecream
and the girl you teased in fourth grade and your first job at a newsstand

i don't know any of this, of course, but i did notice the attendants who lifted
you into the waiting ambulance without flashing lights, which is how i
knew the soul had gone out of your eyes, too.  and so i colored inside and
outside the lines from your perspective there.  license plates and clicking
heels, leather boots, tires, and the sound of rain on pavement.  and the smells!

did you imagine your last meal from the nearby restaurant kitchen?  truffled
potatoes with eggs over easy, pastries melting onto your tongue like snowflakes
and dark rich coffee in a real mug to cradle in your cracked hands like a dream?
you are freed from people's false pity and the onlookers, "isn't it terrible?" they will
say.  but not half as terrible as not being noticed in the gaps, the gaps between.

you had the best view of the sky from there, brick buildings flanking the city scape
no power lines to crowd your sights of birds flying south or airplanes. such clouds...
perhaps last weekend you saw more than any of us because our heads were down
oh-so-busy with the day.  i hope a swathe of sky opened just for you so an
angel could pull down some mercy and whisper, "you belong."

ls 10.9.16