The dirty old white woman pushes
a shopping cart full of trash and
a doll's dismembered head and
a set of paintbrushes and
several beer bottles and
a pair of mismatched leather gloves
for the same left hand.

She screams:
I'm not from around here and
nobody knows my name.
I could die here on this sidewalk
amid the other discarded rubble
and nobody would know for a long time.

She says:
I am of the street now.
The street knows me and
understands me and
saves me.

She whispers:
Time was I lived in a nice house
I had two children- a boy and a girl.
My husband was a college professor
And I was an artist.
Then something happened and four walls
could not contain me for they were my prison.

But when she says all this it sounds like:

Fiddle razzle frazzle bedazzle
Scrotum name game and
Kiss my behind his toes glumph and
Warble. Waffle, and bluffly, arghhh.

She says all these things with spittle
shooting from her mouth and
landing on your Armani handbag and his fashionable
Gucci loafers.

And she repeats again and again until
you throw her a quarter just to get her to

move.

And you really don't know how she got to this place
or where she's been.

And you really don't care so long as she gets
the hell out of your face.