Some One

In daylight she sits on a strip of grass and reads, a pile of books beside her. She walks on sidewalks. Sometimes she pushes a shopping cart. Sometimes it stands unattended, where she reads, under the shade trees of a oneway street. She sleeps on the cement in front of the post office, constructs a sort of nest, cardboard and blankets. She talks to herself. That’s everything I know of her.

One very cold night I thought to give her a blanket. But she has many blankets. I think I’ll give her soup. Sometimes it’s hard to get warm.

What more? What more? It’s not so much futility as helplessness. We have only the power of a moment.


J