On Fertile Ground

woman on her scooter scoops chili from her insulated bag onto plastic plates deftly juggling movement while the motor idles wounded humanity, street people with shock eyes that smash against the heat, form a line their off beat grins that recall the fertility of hope men accepting plates of food, paper thin pride soreness in bony bodies that have no words for self pity stitched to her bike, she dispenses hot food for the mercurial in city streets, a sparse ground with patches of charity fertile soil for those tossed like bags in a storm burdened by a brutal calm devoid of the green weeds of ego Poem composed: August 18/21