III

A sidewalk siren

She spins in the fading daylight

Singing her melody to a parade of lonely passersby

Hem of her dress filthy

From dragging along the piss-soaked

And cigarette littered sidewalk

 

I can see her thin limbs

Dance detached from her body

Through the thin material of her translucent pink

Slip dress

 

Pink like berry-stained fingers

Pink like an open wound

Pink like the sores on her bare feet

Pink like the skin around her mouth and nose

Pink like the twisting melodies escaping her lips

Carving patterns in a cloying smog

 

The eyes clawing at her frame

Revealed by low-hanging sun and thin fabric

They mistake that she is prey

 

I will not forget her song

 

Pioneer Square, Seattle, 2017

 

(photo by Brontë Wittpenn)