A Poverty of Reason

Fingerless gloves cup a cold jar
Dust of the street never settles
A beggar asks how cold we are
He has sore little time to tell us

He has the stoplight to help him
Waiting for brakes and signal red
Blank faces judge what befell him
Scorn says he begs to be dead

Occasionally mouthed epithets
Scale to assault his salting eyes
He stones himself to help forget
And swallow what tears he cries

He offers washing windshields
If that would help them see him
Nescient how in his skin feels
Craving the green to leave him

At times as the light is changing
He hears a kind driver holler
Offering change left over waiting
Turning grateful to give a dollar