The woman became more ragged
as the summer wore on, dirtier, thinner.
Middle-aged, she would stand in front
of the skyscraper at 555 California Street,
San Francisco, and from a wisp of paper
she'd read an endless list of all the wrongs
ever done to her. The time her father forgot,
and left her at school, and she was small
and afraid. The time her husband
took the kids and disappeared forever,
though she'd searched and wandered.
How God came to forget her. Everyday
she would stand there till the security guards
would shoo her away. I began
to give her my lunch if I was around
California and Kearney at the same time
as her. Sometimes she'd shyly reach
out for it, embarrassed. Other times
it seemed that she didn't see me,
like she was a ghost, or like I was, as if
we did not exist on the same plane,
just in the same place. Still other times
she'd back away from me, eyes wild,
her thin arms up as if to ward off blows.
Toward the end of summer, she was gone.
I never heard anything about her again. By then
she was filthy, skin and bones and a hank
of stiff hair. The last time I saw her I was inside
555 California Street, and the woman's back
was to the plate glass window. I walked up
and looked over her shoulder as she read her list.
The slip of paper was blank, and I cried as her stiff,
dry hair stood out in the San Francisco wind.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem