A Reminder (2nd draft)

You haven’t known humility
until you’ve had your foot run over
by a woman in a wheelchair
smoking an off-brand cigarette
She rolled off as I stood in the middle
of the crosswalk and she flicked her butt
to the pavement without a single glance

To know this humility, like knotted seaweed,
those emotions that stumble over grace,
you must sit in Veggie Heaven
on the drag in the off-peak shadows
for hours and watch the window
as the pane is passed over by hand-holding lovers
(flicking butts without a single glance)
and study your reflection as a palimpsest

In this position, you’ll notice
someone’s aging mother with arthritis
ambling on cloudy sandals
with a lone tray of leftovers
tossing rice to pigeons (in Tok Pisin
muttering a prayer for the many starving people
on the islands of Melanesia you’ll never know)
which crumbles on the parched pavement
in the shape of Indonesia

Why do you care to notice?
Because at the far table
beyond the edge of your known world
the Spanish-speaking busgirls
sit down after the lunch shift,
enjoying an energetic picnic
in the empty restaurant,
their three voiceless whispers
echoing the cadence of confidence

Sunburnt men in their seventies
with tired rage encasing their faces
creep along the sidewalk,
mumbling to pigeons as someone’s mother
hands them meals in styrofoam
(which didn’t exist in their youth)
to extend time with a smile

I am the silver man from the Dobie
(the one who sweeps the floors in a stained uniform)
charging across the street
between the #1 bus and the bicycles
shielded by a black plastic bag
with all I own – a blanket, two shirts,
and the last picture of my mother before she passed
(to bury it behind a dumpster)
Though you can’t help but wonder about my childhood,
how I always wanted to be in the movies,
know that my last job was Fear
and that you too will one day be ensnared as a metaphor
by some scared poet searching desperately for an image

So go back to your uneaten
curry bun on the table,
savor it now,
and save the humble prayer
of words
for yourself.
One day they’ll be all you have.