Dear Anonymous,
Somedays, more than others, I feel this perpetually empty beak sensation. A gaping maw of the street. Arriving at the edge of the nest this morning and the beaks are wide open heads popping up throats extended. Desperately hungry. More. More . More. So hungry for this and for that. Never enough. Never able to be satisfied. Truly. How many coats do you hand to someone wondering where the others are. Stored. Sold. Broken.Zipper broken. Traded. Torn. Wrapped around the kid they pass sleeping on the bricks. In a trash can after a rainstorm. No way to dry it out.
Mike decided against traveling up county to a funeral. Tells me he had a private little memorial and good bye on his own. Avoiding a thousand triggers. We hand him another bag of toys for the family shelter. Puzzles, and hot wheels and building bricks. An antidote to the dreary day. A few children will have a slightly better day as a result. He may too.
Coffee cards and socks, thank you, are still what is most requested. And a new young man on the street, not dressed for life out here, collects a neck warmer and socks and sighs relief with the coffee card.
'Somewhere to go inside for a few minutes...thank you.'
Thank you Dear Anonymous.