kindness

he looks like a monk doing his rounds all wrapped up in a bold blue blanket, as clean and fresh as he wasn't. i saw him  methodically marching downtown, wearing flip flops in fifty degrees, as if he had just escaped his rescue. his cherubic face exploded in bursts of grimace as he whipped his head forward & back with every other step, as if fly casting his nightmares against the wall of his skull, concussing the instrument of pain. the incongruity of his presence amid the canyons of smooth surfaces that do not permit, mugged my eyes behind the window where i sit drinking tea. he stops at the corner and approaches a middle-aged woman with a huge lions-mane of auburn hair, a classy corporate stripper in knee-high black leather boots & stiletto heels, second skin clothing merchandising the curves. there is so much that is false about her i don't even know where she actually begins, clinging desperately to a hand-me-down beauty that is failing her like a plastic toy from walmart. the disturbed blue blanketed man approaches and appears to compliment her on how great she looks and she smiles back, a real smile, as real as this woman gets, the bright gleam of her too white teeth, stained from the abuse of dentists, strobes the overcast morning. and then the light changes, and they go their separate ways. she continues her stroll as he continues to pace his nightmare.