To the Homeless Woman with One Eye and Half her Teeth Falling Asleep Next to me at Starbucks

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oregon is a long way from Arizona.

You long for the coast, but sleep in the desert.

What has Arizona to do with Oregon or Idaho?

 

No place to stay but on mean streets.

Not easy street or Apache Trail, not Broadway or Ironwood,

but any street where you sleep.

 

You borrow my purple pen

matching your purple phone.

 

And I wonder how Oregon’s purple rain

turned you inside out.

 

Estranged from home,

everyone steals from you

even the hotel desk clerk.

 

People are kinder in Oregon.

My father is in Idaho.

 

And the complaints you lodge against mean people

make me wish I were Howard Schultz, and this really was your third place.

 

I would offer you a job or buy you an eye.

Or if you chose not to work, I wouldn’t care.

 

Maybe one time, a street, avenue, boardwalk, circle, drive or road

will deliver something good to you.

 

A new half set of teeth, or an old family member.

A drop of purple rain, or human kindness,

 

so that slowly, bone by bone

and nerve by optic nerve

you could piece it all together

 

and buy a purple raincoat or hat

that would color the desert and

let you see.