She wakes to squalor,
A smell of burnt coffee,
And a baby crying next door.

She has a cold, or at least,
She hopes it’s a cold:
She can’t afford anything worse.

On the way to work,
She sees people staring at their phones,
Walking dogs, yelling at drivers,
Waving to friends. She passes by
The bakery, with its long line,
To go to a little place where a cup of coffee
Is only 75 cents.

It’s by a little art shop,
And she loves the paintings they are
Showing in the window now:
Abstract, bright, cheerful,
And nothing at all like anything she sees at work
Or at home.

At a time and in a place
Where she tries her hardest not to feel,
These paintings make her feel —
But in a good way.

She does not know the artist —
Young or old, male or female —
But she knows she’d like to say “thank you”
To whomever it is.

---

(Assumption: “Good art reflects real life.”)

Where does this idea come from, that
We get in life what we deserve?
Not from observation, certainly.

Does she deserve to only dream
Of a roof that doesn’t leak, or indeed,
A roof and walls at all?

---

(Assumption: “Poor people deserve it.”)

“Oh, this younger generation,
  Duckface selfies, shallowness,
  Vanity — it is no wonder
  That this world is such a mess.”

---

Her friend receives the silly picture, and laughs:
They make fun of these types of photos all the time.
Best friends growing up: one now a pilot, the other
Still in school, working on a master’s degree.

Their mothers were best friends, too:
One was a bank teller, who raised her daughter
To believe anything was possible, even things
That had not been possible in her day —
Like flying.
The other was a housewife, who hid the bruises,
Even from her best friend. Her daughter learned,
As had her brother before her,
That the world is both more and less than what it seems.
That drove her to study psychology: it drove
Her brother into social work.

They knew what their father was:
They refused to let it define them.
She thinks about the pile of papers she needs to grade
As part of her teaching assistantship,
But her now distant friend’s laughing reaction
To her ridiculous selfie gives her just enough feeling
Of connection to bring a real smile to her face
And her heart.

Adult daughters of proud mothers,
Bearing now the glorious weight of so much possibility.

---

(Assumption – “Humanity has gradually gotten worse”.)

From the beginning, she was everything.
He listened to her carefully, and understood
Her pains, her passions, and her complex history.
He loved her for her candor, and her wit:
And gave to her in ways he did not know
He had in him. She got the best
He had to offer: genuine caring, and
Commitment… of time, of money, of energy.

Then… she cheated on him.
With someone richer, more famous, more powerful.
And what could he say?

Sometimes we reap what we do not sew,
Sometimes we harvest what we have not planted:
Sometimes we choose what should not have been chosen.

He knows she’s not “all women”,
But it seems like such a poor return
On that much invested

Love

---

(Assumption: “People get out what they put into a relationship.”)