On her good days she might
apply a little make-up, as if
she had someplace to go, and cared.
On those days
she would wear the
diamond studs and the morning
rose up like fire in her cheeks.
"Legs still strong," she would say,
and talk about her day,
which was like most days,
and each day she expected
I would arrive, and most often
I did, though it was over ten years
since her eyes first called me
to her fallen breasts, and sometimes
I doubted I would ever return.
Whether she had wanted children,
or had them and gave them up,
or why she didn’t marry,
I never knew,
and me a family man.
In those days there was
a chill to her rooms that even
her thin smile could not remedy,
so mostly she just sat there
and waited it out.
And all that time
she could not recall
why she had first asked
me to come; over ten years
gone by, and still the old girl
did not remember my name.
Old Man Waiting at a Bus Stop
