Listening to the City’s Ghosts

In the blur of rain on the windshield,
in the moment it takes the blades 
to wipe forward and back, he walks 
into view, across your horizon,
hoodie turned up, face down,
looking no where but down, hands 
in pocket— headlight specters
giving him a transparency 
that forces you to a dead stop.
 
In that moment from left to right,
right to left, the boustrophedonic flow,
he vanishes into the next line, like all 
the other spirits crying for leaving.

Now, you notice the other distances:

The old one with the white worn ball cap
and torn suede jacket leaning in a 
reverse hunch on the bus bench, 
his turned down knapsack at his feet- 
an existence of discarded coffee cups
all around, his sad-eyed dog mirroring  
his misery with a downward whine.

The vendor in the ramshackle booth selling 
unsellable papers to the bowed faces 
reading the gray that clouds their mind.   

The lame, lonely, angry, downcasts  
in the busy crowded crosswalk
bemoaning the lost past, ignoring 
the reconnections walking by-e.

Those on the side searching for the 
lost French fry among empty 
food containers- rejecting the plea
of the woman in the llama wool cap
selling fresh clean garden fruit from 
a rickety table for less than the grocery.

Smiling, silent, you lift up your empty cup-
and thinking- of all the unspoken words in 
your soul, you bless these night by night 
and day by day ghosts, trying but never 
seeing the chance in their every day walk.