Most street people are barbed thorn trees,
hard men and harder women who sprawl
in dim doorways. Chopped bike parts
splay in tangled heaps on blue tarps.
You lean on your cart, old man’s feet, blue.
You reach for new socks, pull out a dull knife.
Why?
Five-second warning shouted in English.
Your body couldn’t stop the iron bullets.
You screamed for the cops to stop. Alto. Ayuda.
I rushed over, spoke to you in halting Spanish.
Only then do I see the entrance
to a garden I had never before noticed.
Somehow you crawl inside, left leg
dragging, come to rest against a yellow bush.
We listen hard for a siren. The air is quiet.
Red blooms — thorn trees in the medians.
Angie Minkin has lived in San Francisco for 40 years and is grateful to live in a blue bubble filled with sea light. She raised two children in this beautiful city and now shares her home with her husband and two playful cats. A poetry editor with Vistas & Byways, Angie’s work has appeared in that journal, as well as Oh Mama, New Verse News, The Pangolin Review, and various anthologies.