These days, on Sunday mornings around eight AM, and before most people are stirring, I take a short drive to the grocery store to do my big weekly grocery shop. Even at that hour, in the cold of winter or the heat summer, in pouring rain and blustering wind, at every street light that I stop at, stands a homeless person holding a cardboard sign asking for help because they don’t have a job and are homeless.
I suppose it’s because I’m a woman, that I’m mostly drawn to the growing number of women on those corners. There’s the one who wears old camouflage clothing, was on crutches for a while, then had a leg brace. A few weeks ago, for the first time there was one who looked to be in her forties and had a hard, mean look about her. She glared at me and held up a sign that said she needed to buy gas for her car so she could get to her job. I haven’t seen her since. Last fall there was a very young women with only one leg, who looked like she might be a wounded warrior from the looks of the shiny prosthetic she was wearing. Too often, our young veterans return from war wounded, are fixed up with these devices, and because of other problems like PTSD and/or drug addiction, find themselves without work or a place to live.
We can make up a gazillion stories about these women, but in truth we don’t know their stories unless we stop and talk to them. So why do some with jobs and warm, cozy homes think of them as useless when they quickly walk or drive by without even a glance?
When I wrote this poem in 2006, I was concerned by the growing number of homeless people I was noticing. I was called to try to put myself in the shoes of an aging woman who many called crazy, but was not, was down on her luck, and had led a difficult life.
my name is sally
i’m sixty-three
found two dollars
in change not enough
for coffee a sandwich
tomato lettuce
tuna on rye
i’ll wait
a few crusts here
and there collect
coins in my cup
watch for the cop
no loitering
sleeping
in doorways
on grates
it’s winter
i’m tired
almost out
of aspirin my knees
the pain so sharp
it’s hard to move
fast when i see
big john
he scares me
yells and shouts
tries to grab
my hair
when he’s
drunk
i lost my comb
the other day
when i fell
into the street
cars kept coming
no one stopped
it’s cold
need
a place
in sun
no wind
tonight
it could
snow
JZR
9/13/06