On the street, they call me baby.
I am stringy dark hair,
A head shorter than most everyone else
There’s an overpass I tuck away in most nights
a few of us sleeping in the nooks and crannies,
The cars above us driving by noisily
Interrupting our fitful dreams
Anika lies on the other side of me
Underneath a shadowy covering beside where the patches of grass begin
She wags her head back and forth, troubled
Talks to herself
Gnaws on the right knuckle of her hand
Her teeth scraping into the skin
She is unsettled
We all are
We choose drugs, prostitution, theft, alcohol, violence, apathy
But most of us deny choosing anything
Because it’s been too long and we feel now that this life chose us
I’m hopeless on some days
But other days with a slice of pizza in my hand,
I think things might be okay
Anika though,
It’s hard for me to think anything about her could possibly contain hope
She’s worn through clothes faster than anyone I’ve ever seen
And the holes in her thin sweater now let the mice climb through overnight
Tonight it’s cold and she saunters kind of close,
A little too close for comfort if you ask me
We haven’t talked in a while but I know she’s feeling lonely
So I let her sit by me and share my scrappy blanket
She smells like sewer, dandelions and rusty dirt
But her eyes are sharp green like needles
And her gaze cuts me.
“Today”
She whispers
“Is my daughter’s birthday”
I can see the dirt tracks on her cheeks where her mama tears must have just fallen
I am embarrassed
I didn’t know she had a daughter
I didn’t know she was a mother
I didn’t know
“I used to sing to her-
You know-
Before they took her away from me.”
Late nights from the past came back to me,
Her humming,
Her melodies,
Her quiet musical voice
For some reason, I had ignored it
But now,
I can see that deep inside her holes and grit and grime
Might be a woman,
A mother with a lovely singing voice
My eyes must have appeared skeptical because
Her eyes squinted like I was daring her
“What did you sing to her?”
I asked
Anika chewed on the end of her finger because
The raw knuckle was red and bleeding
“The same thing my mama used to sing to me.”
She raised her head and let her eyes find a star or two
Between the concrete above us
And then her eyelids fluttered shut
And her grubby hands reached to find mine,
Clasping tightly like I was falling off a cliff
We sat together as the cold swirled around us,
Her voice waving back and forth,
An ache in the notes but a deep vibrato too
She was singing Amazing Grace
When her voice cracked, I looked to her peacefully closed eyes
And she kept going
When the cars drowned her out for a moment,
I stayed glued to her face
Because today Anika was honoring her mother
And her daughter
All in one grace-filled breath
And I wasn’t going to let her do it without an audience
