A Poem for Him

Riding home on the R train from dinner with friends, you are confronted by tragedy and compassion.

He’s distracted when the sheet slips from his head, so suddenly revealed to the crowded train. Not much past twenty, fine high cheekbones, wary eyes avoiding your direct gaze. He stretches out his long bare shoeless legs. How has he managed to keep his feet clean when his combat pants and rugby shirt are so dirty? Sated by your evening out, this is what you wonder, not why or how he has come to shroud himself in the white sheet. He pulls the cloth up over his head and wraps it tighter around his face, shoulders, knees, feet, encased once more. Shamed, you read the poem posted above that watches over him.

Little Prayer  

by Danez Smith; Art by Francesco Simeti   

let ruin end here  

let him find honey 
where there was once slaughter  

let him enter the lion cage
& find a field of lilacs  

let this be the healing 
& if not    let it be  

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