Timeless: a 20 Minute Poem

The girl’s on track, on time, on a streetcar after school
copybooks squared into her elbow as
western sunshine strobes her face
as the dark and light of house and lane
click / clatter past her drowsy eyes

The thick bear of an old man, crumpled in
dirty blankets, drools tobacco brownly.
He smells of cheese and rot. The girl grits her teeth,
crosses her knees, stares at her princess coat
she is suffused with revulsion
she is struck by love
her whole self surrounds him and all the ragged poor

She forgives age, rags, rheum, and loneliness,
soothes all humans in her schoolgirl arms. She
restores fingers lost to the greenchain, softens
city concrete to fashion them burrows,
nurses them as though they passed through her own womb,
cute and shiny as cubs. Her heart aches, abducted
by illumination so bright she will faint.

The girl gets off the streetcar. She turns 60.

She always hears the pad of ursine feet
beside her, safe-guarding her way home.