A reflection on Homelessness ~

I see the garment of a grief and pain

you no longer can feel,

the sleeve of my own heart tugged at

on this lost winter's afternoon,

cold and indecisive sun reflected

in the eyes of all who pass by, conceal

Surfacing fears of who I am, fake or real,

or what I may yet become,— like you,

a vagrant soul walking this earth,

higher needs hollowed out, bankrupted,

content to settle for random crumbs of care

from nameless strangers who do stop, so few

Extend a kindred hand, a smile to view,

or act as though that unsavory smell,

as you sit for warmth on the sidewalk vent,

is not the cloaking aura of our neglect,

wafting upon the subway thermals from below,

but the imaginable breath of some unimaginable Hell.

“I wear dreams like your clothes,

tattered, tortured, stained

with the disgust of the clerk at

the Grand Central Station lost-and-found room,

who took expedient pity on me one loitering day,

to make the 5:01 train"

- Michael D. Petti

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