Who She Was or Where She Was Going I Don’t Know


In this afternoon’s low half-shadow, 
resolve and bravery passed me on the street – 
a woman older than I am, elderly, 
her back C curved, one foot a drag on the other,

as sideways she moved as she held in both her hands 
– as one might bear a birthday cake, candles lit –
a package wrapped in a child's newsprint drawings 
and ribboned with a red bow that shook as her hands shook, 

as though she carried beyond weight 
the sole fact and proof between affection and oblivion.  
The sidewalk narrowed.  I stepped aside.  If there was traffic 
I missed it – squirrels on a wire, scrub jays, 

a crow hectoring pigeons, I missed them all.  
Her eyes looked into mine.  My head nodded. 
My stumbling mouth said good hello.  She smiled.
I dared not look back.