Bundled in coats
they huddled on the corner
beneath the streetlamp haze,
their upturned faces pale.
It was as if they searched for shelter
In each other’s empty gaze.
Those who found their voices
unpacked stray thoughts and feelings,
or they quietly mumbled curses
as torchlight flickered failed .
Some things grew hard to see…
By now few were kneeling,
arranging ragged flowers, cardboard signs.
The colors smeared and ran…
A balloon broke free
floating among stained fingers, and numbed minds.
A grey man of the cloth
Clung to the group
spittle flecked his lips as he `explained.’
Nobody cared…no one was listening.
Yet he remained
hanging like smoke in looped
and loosening strands
unfolding
from some talker’s
moving hand.
All around them the insistent rain
fierce and slanted, goaded by the wind,
was pummeling the glowing broken shapes
trapped beneath bright surfaces below.
And beyond, the traffic, thickly draped
In its own angry hum, the constant flow
drowning the silence. There was no escape.
.
Steve Scott
.