Spare Change

Eyes open—propped with latte’s, cropped with bag-and-sag removing eye-opening work
Paid for yearly, dearly, from the surgeons hands.

But they don’t see him on the corner with his cardboard sign.
A sign of what’s to come.  What is.  His.  Nothing.
Need for everything but Need.

Weathered fingers cracked—wrapped in tape to keep them whole as he holds his hand out
To reach for Hope as the whole world passes him by without the blink of an eye.  Unseen.

Perhaps they’ve never felt the grime, the crime, clinging to their view of who they long to be.
Long lost to those who do not see.

She looks toward the light.
A flashing phone smarts with lack of pain.  She strains to see the dent where her manicure bent
As she texted vain ramblings.  Is she scrambling to look away?  Or was she never here at all.

She pays to remove the wrinkle from her brow but doesn’t know how to ease the strain. She spares no change to rearrange his pain.  She changes lanes.

At this intersection lives cross, but only one feels the nails.  No interception or introspection.
Her inspection reveals false nails as she holds them to the light without illumination. Suffering nation.  How can they not see?

Copyright by Sheri J. Kennedy
All Rights Reserved