Page One

7:30 A.M. 

I rapidly crisscross  

the street. 

Load my hybrid car  

first with computer, 

then with dry cleaning 

before commuting 12 miles 

across town 

to work. 

12 feet away, 

at the corner of Henry and Rose 

an unfamiliar,  

long,  

“S”-curved sculpture 

protrudes  

from the sidewalk. 

Brown, worn  

Doc Martins 

stand bedside.  

Covered chin to toe, 

the red haired woman wrapped motionless in a sleeping bag 

decorates our street 

with increasingly endured 

poverty 

surrounded  

by wealth. 

Hopkins is the author of Glass Closet, a collection of poems and essays published by AfroChicano Press in 2009.