Calendar Girl  

Coming out of sleep’s silky peace
as first light floods the sky,
her heart races into wakefulness.
She moves quickly
through morning rituals,
making a check-mark
on the calendar
for today, April 7.  She
is grateful for spring.


Someone is coming today
to hear her story.
She will tell them
it wasn’t something she had
thought of, not for a minute,
giving up the scholarship
to care for her mother;
she never meant to give up
everything,
only school for a while.


This is the best place
she has slept lately,
this concrete loading dock
where so far she has been
undisturbed by the police.
We criminalize poverty
in America.
Where had she heard that?


Like most days she walks
to the library downtown,
searches for work on the internet,
hopes whatever she is reading
hasn’t been checked out.
She squirreled Jane Austen
once, in the wrong section.
Book-hiding is her only crime.


She sees elegant women
stepping out of Main Street condos,
women who need long mirrors
to convince them
they’re worthy of being seen.
They look fine.


Later, down by the river, she is
interviewed under the bridge.
“What do you want?  What do you hope for?”
To get a job....go back to school...
To understand.
Most of all, to understand.


Posted on a girder,
the calendar is on her side,
turning time
into neat squares
she can manage.