I am on my way to work.
On a sidewalk corner
a woman is handcuffed,
surrounded by uniformed men
who have been granted the power
to do such things.
The woman meets my stare
with eyes of hopelessness,
despair, and empty rage.
I have been there,
I may be there again.
And you might ask
if the woman is any more guilty of anything
than the men who put her in the back
of a car to take her to some ugly place,
and I might answer
I don't know
and it wouldn't matter if I did.
Across the street
a woman in another kind of uniform
runs for a bus.
She is still half a block away
as it stops to let the people file
off and on.
Hold the bus,
the woman yells,
hold the bus.
A few people give her
blank glances
but no one holds the bus
and it pulls away
as she reaches the stop
out of breath and clutching her chest.
A man coughs and drops
a losing ticket on the ground
and that's the way things happen.
1 comment:
mmm.
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