don't mutter oh no

not another one

get a job      fly a kite

go bury a bone
               

with her old-fashioned sandals

with her leaden skirts

with her stained cheeks and whiskers and heaped up trinkets

she has risen among us in blunt reproach

               

she has fitted her hair under a hand-me-down cap

and spruced it up with feathers and stars

slung over one shoulder she bears

the rainbowed layers of charity and murmurs

all of you    even the least of you

               

don't cross to the other side of the square

don't think another item to fit on a tourist's agenda

     
consider her drenched gaze    her shining brow

she who has brought mercy back into the streets

and will not retire politely to the potter's field
  
having assumed the thick skin of this town

its gritted exhaust its sunscorch and blear

she rests in her weathered plumage

bigboned     resolute
          

don't think you can ever forget her

don't even try

she's not going to budge

               

 no choice but to grant her space

crown her with sky

for she is one of the many

and she is each of us.