Smoke Inhalation
I give extra money to the workers
at the laundromat
because one died at 24 and
in remembering the contusions of her past
and the gap of her future,
I am pretending to believe
in the possibility of relief
for the other young women
folding my clothes.
Once a construction worker
gave me a dollar
as I dragged a cardboard
suitcase along the sidewalk.
He saw the utterness of my defeat
despite the childishness of my face.
Then as now, a dollar’s not enough
to buy respite from an empty sky.
It’s more like getting a postcard
showing the long loneliness
of the path ahead.
*
Samn Stockwell has published extensively. Her new book Musical Figures is published by Thirty West Publishing House. Previous books won the National Poetry Series and the Editor’s Prize at Elixir. Recent poems are in Pleiades and others.
This is an interesting poem. The cardboard suitcase. The dollar. Haunting…
Powerful.
Says a lot, simply but powerfully.
That’s why we all can do most good by pooling our community resources. We DO have power to make things better together. ⚘️🪻