She wasn’t really a bum.
She had a name.
Lauren.
She had a face too
but she asked me not to
photograph it.
But what really attracted her to me
was she was reading a book.
You don’t really associate street people
with reading.
And it was a big book.
Like a Russian novel.
Dostoevsky or Tolstoy maybe.
But it was a home grown novelist.
Bryce Courtenay
a true story about a girl called Jessica.
She was on page 237 and she was only halfway
into it.
We talked briefly.
I put some coins in her cap and left her to it
on the cold sidewalk.
I would like to have known her story
but you can’t be intrusive.
John Malone 
Maybe this is a beginning…
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she was young, Beth; she has plenty of time to get herself together; I’ve read the book too; much of it may resonate with her life —
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Great- stop by and drop her off another book now and then
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great idea, Beth; I will do that if she’s there this Friday evening 🙂
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A name can be so powerful. Like this book title, and your street friend. Here’s to hoping she discovers the power of her own name along the way. A lovely share, John.💜
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thank you K; she’s young; she has time 🙂
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My father was against novels in general. He felt they weren’t good for hard-headed people. He would’ve pointed to that chick and declaimed, “You see? Reading like that got her there.”
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that attitude still persists; she was young, she might not have been a street person long; yes, that attitude still persists thoughto see a young person read a fat novel on the cold sidewalk is rare —
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I needed this. This feeling, these words. Thanks.
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thanks Stacy; glad it helped 🙂
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I have given books in my Homeless bags before.
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I don’t know what books are best suited. I would have thought a ‘fat’ novel like Jessica would find few readers amongst street people but you never can tell —
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There’s a lot we presume about people and can be pleasantly surprised by what we actually find out. There’s always hope, as paths do diverge. Wish her luck! 🙂
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I will Terveen if she’s there tonight; we only pass by that way Friday evenings —
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Nicely done John.
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thanks, Bob; I would like to have got more of her in the poem, but reticence is a virtue too —
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