Portrait

Alone in the darkness,
I stand at my window
and gaze down on my deserted block,
barely lit by a single street lamp.
Suddenly, I see him,
The old man sitting lonely
On the September cold,
concrete steps
Of the crumbling fountain.
Blankly he stares into the night,
his crumpled, yet unread newspaper
sagging within his gnarled grip.
Somewhere across town, his Agnes,
cries behind closed hospital doors.
Her wasted body strains against
A safety harness that binds her to the bed.

Tears burn my face
And I see my own future.
Me-----A tired old lady
Stopping to rest decrepit limbs
on the remains of the fountain stairs.
Me----Swollen fingers twisted in arthritic agony
easing down to black sensible shoes
to rub aching bunions through homemade airholes.
Me---Struggling to stand and painfully
making lonely steps to nowhere.

Angry swipes at my eyes
remove the picture and the tears.
The old man remains,
Still clutching his paper.
In anger and fear I turn away
And go sit with the man at the fountain..