It was this way:

a cluster of us, waiting
for a signal to change,
the brown-skinned man next to me
proclaiming Prada on a t-shirt, his green cap
says why not? my shoulders bare to the heat
but for aqua straps then a writhing thing turned up
by so many sharp shovels of hard digging
pushes her way into us.

It was this way:
the effort of arms cranking wheels
depletes the reserves she's gathered to get here,
head lolls, matted hair resting on a navy blouse
with yellow flowers hanging open
limp empty breasts cracked nipples
laying on her distended belly like animals,
bare filthy feet, bruised and bloody toes
unbearably delicate poking out below
two calves contained in blackened casts,
skin patterned with a constellation
of blue-edged sores, purple broken flesh
too much of it for any explanation,
spills over the plaster, over
the sides of the battered chair dragging
a pink skirt painted with brown shit
in the remaining spokes of one wheel,
her eyes closed, through white cracked lips she says
sounds that don't come
from human mouths, is missing the second finger
on her right hand, is wearing one silver dangling earring,
has a newspaper, and a bible on her lap,
flies ring a buzzing halo around her head.
It was this way.

She is our raw wound, oozing
every terrible thing we've thought
or said or done, or haven't,
our every private shame dissected, laid out
naked on the slab of our legion of failures,
gaping pit from which we are unable to climb out,
terrified to step into.
She is how we try and drain the sea
with a straw.
And we look away while we watch
for the white light hand raised, like a benediction
we don't deserve and it comes and we take it, we
cross the street, no backward glance,
the white hand guiding us, safe.


It was this way.

We have forgotten what she looks like already.