The Man
Poem
The most heartbreaking thing I saw today
Was a homeless man in Union Square with a sign that read
HOMELESS VETERAN 82
Please help any work I’m a plumber
Please need old clothes old phone for work
Please Ask. Not LAZY
Thank
To think that we have created a world where
lack of circumstance appears as lack of ambition
That a genetic lottery made the difference
He could have been any of us
To think he had internalized it enough to say it out loud
I would have stopped to hear his story
Offer my services
Do better by him than others had done him
But a man already was crouched down next to him
Saying, “My friend will be here soon to help you”
How fortunate to have seen some other good Samaritan beat me to it
That never happens in New York
I was so happy I cried
And wrote this
more by Kristen Green
photograph by Vero Photoart
