Open air of the nearby Puget Sound
salty breeze brushes my face.
I think Seattle is an Eden
even here, at Belltown,
outside the Salvation Army.
We wait, in a slow anxious line.
Down damp stairs
Eden dissipates.
The air stagnates,
scents of too many men with nothing to their name.
Walking into the room of brown and black-
tight hardened bodies.
My shiny belly protrudes
from an old winter coat.
Dark eyes look at me curiously- a woman child,
with child; I am smaller than all of them,
even in my voluptuous swollen state- I shrink.
Dull white washed linoleum, white walls, white ceiling
Crammed into lunch table benches.
My monochromatic meal sits still.
Yesterday's breakdowns infused with today's rain.
We all look dutifully into our plates.
NorthSouth Press 