Friday, April 5, 2019

A survivor, shopping

he totters forward
leaning on the grocery cart
hair as white as moonlight
his face wrinkled with some tragedy
I think
his hands, knobby with arthritis
a white knuckled grip on the cart

he pauses in the rows
and rows
and rows
of abundance
selects a package of coffee beans.

as he stretches his hand forward
I see it
a ghostly string of tattooed numbers
on his forearm

I wonder
how he can carry
 the weight of memories
of a place so inhumane

then I turn away
looking down at my own arms
and find a sleeve
to wipe my eyes

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