Structures from silence

Diamond footnotes flying off my cherished finger 

to your lips, your anchor, your constant balance and salt

Dream mothers holding together the world
holding back the glare and the shine and the scissors of the days sun
They are always there watching, the dead
some real, some invisible tissue and cards

The road snaps back, twisted and sullen
dead flowers, beautiful in the sun
floating and drying and turning back to dust, to our earth

We awaken in cars for questions and lovely people
and sound scattered life raging for
too much light, too much light and all so fragile
and holding together our shared world
like dirt for the root and the nest of the mother dove

So I gave the guy a buck
and she is always there on that one corner
like an old photo, skinny, wrinkled, dried out
squatting with the last of the cigarettes
dangling out of her mouth above the cardboard sign
& dreaming of the lottery
just like me

And the wind blew over the inhuman street clogged
with bored drivers and the leaves fell and the lights changed
and the dry dry sky capped her hand in the thunder
and lifted the spirit from under her hair.
A man in a truck came to a stop and opened his window.
A think clunk of paper wrapped by a rubber band flew out
and landed on the hard sidewalk. She got up with the pain,
blue eyes boring into the brick of money, every bill a one hundred.
The clouds were grey, the sky was in blue patches,
the distant mountains sent wind to kiss her cheeks
and gently wrap her white old hair around her face.
She looked at the truck as it slowly drove away,
becoming like all the others.
She picked up her stuff, left the sign,
and walked slowly down the street.