We are in the business of judging
strangers with wry smiles and hats dipped low.
We lean in to evaluate, though not close, watching
their direction with curiosity and fear, while
avoiding their gaze so as not to be invited
into their unstable space.
We imagine their aroma. Where they slept
and what their looking for.
They are wounded, cut from a life they had;
people from every street.
Somewhere their dreams drowned, washing
them onto a shoreline they walk.
We wonder for a moment if our lives changed…..
we brush away surface thoughts.
“There but for the grace of God, go I.”
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