You find in a castoff paper a story of suicide
by a woman your age on a street you’d both shared.

Engaged with the toil and noise of your own life
you whisper to no one that you’d never seen her—

picture a pink-walled room, heartthrob posters.
But so harried were you to trudge your way

to a busboy job that ground you down,
one you quit suddenly after dumping dishes

in the trash, rushing home at the break of a cloudburst
to curse your father for making you take on such shitty work,

all the while snubbing neighbors trying to catch your eye
with their warm greetings, to say nothing of the street preacher

who’s never won a soul—surely not yours,
here now in the near empty dusk

waiting for late drifters to pass within gospel range,
his umbrella unfurled, restless foot nudging a feral flower

blooming in the buckling sidewalk’s rivulet of rain,
his eyes cast upward to gauge the clouds,

or just some dim bulb burning in a window.