It is winter, and we must be brave.
Outside the car windows freeze over
as various piles of blankets roam the city,
some silent, some screaming.
Across the street, the White Bird takes them
and gives them what is possible.
They line up for hours before the gates open,
waiting for treatment that is a charity,
and once it snowed for three days and no one could be there.
The trees are in skeletal sleep, after they burst in color in fall,
perches for crows, seagulls, and tiny hummingbirds hanging on
by the kindness of the neighbor’s sugar water.
There is sun sometimes, but more often there is rain
that falls so much and so fast I forget I need to drink
the water as much as the soft ground here.
I’ve been dehydrated since October.
On lawns and curbs, collections of tents appear
and disappear. A park houses hundreds of ragged
dwellings subject to flooding when the water levels rise.
Every tent in every Costco and REI has one of our names on it,
sewn into the threads,
waiting for the snip of the scissors to release a timeline
where that last check isn’t enough anymore,
and the mouths are hungry,
and the mind is hungry,
and you’re just hungry.
Melcontents 