tin cup music

tin cup music life’s story was etched on her face carved with pocket-knife memories rubbed in with grammar school erasers and colored like heavy wet fog on a stinson beach winter’s morning . smiles were kept tucked in her pocket until a coin rang out like handel’s messiah hitting the bottom of her tin cup a reminder of how far she had fallen in a life written like a fourteen-line sonnet noise from darkened streets and shadowed corners became comforting street sounds as she curled in her coarse wool army blanket now clutched to her chin and pushed by her toes until she found sleep in her cocoon of warmth . then a little girl jumped on chalk-drawn squares skipped rope and laughed while running into the wind and peeking around corners in games of hide and seek oh, she chased her puppy and hugged her kitten in dreams constructed with yesterday’s pieces awakened, she wondered when she last cried tears no longer fell easily and the gurgling complaints in her belly reminded her that morning erased dreams as easily as dreams erased the pain of living tolbert