September 19, 2024 | poem by Craig Kirchner
Driving in, I spotted her.
Standing in the only shade for blocks
on a boulevard of vast divergence,
but little in the way of trees,
with layered clothing, a knit beanie, and boots.
Leaning lackadaisically
on worldly possessions,
packed tightly in a shopping cart,
she seems to be pondering the newly,
reconstructed portal, with its red cones
and white arm in front of the formidable,
original, wrought iron gate, in front of the
imperiled, gated neighborhood.
The community sees this as security,
keeps out stickers when it rains,
or temperamentally malfunctions.
This afternoon it perceives itself,
as protection from the Walmart cart
and its comrade, who doesn’t appear,
to have any desire to enter.
Beyond the entrance a typical condo,
equity, a pool, two bedrooms, and an office,
which handsomely houses about six hundred books.
Volumes, which will never be allowed to
go homeless, be exiled to a shopping cart,
to be disregarded in the Florida heat,
seeing as how they have lived,
and breathed for me when I needed them.
