new poem - the chant

It's been a long time since I have written a poem - but I saw this women the other day, rolled down my window to hear what she was saying out of curiosity . . . maybe this is not so much a poem as a snapshot.


the chant

"And it's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a koan and it's a broken Hallelujah"
~ Leonard Cohen

she walks in circles
muttering about her daughter
and the man who beat them,
even in January
the Sonoran Desert sun
pounds the street corner
where she awaits her bus,
but no one looks up
at her, no one asks
if she is okay,
if she needs help
for the bruises tattooing
her cheek and lips,
the small spot of dried
blood beneath her nose,
as she continues
the story, walking round
and round, almost chanting,
"I tried . . . I tried
. . . I tried . . ."