Underneath the Overpass
Underneath the overpass as I was passing by,?
Something in the shadows, a shape had caught my eye.?
I couldn’t tell just what it was—intrusive thoughts owned me,?
For once I didn’t understand the shape my mind did see.
I drove on down the interstate, the rain began to pour,?
Wipers rapping,
?Thunder clapping, ?
Storming at my door.?
Lightning struck around me—waking sights I can’t ignore.
Each flash of light revealed the truth I'd buried long ago,?
A cardboard wall, a tattered coat, a figure slumped below.?
The past came flooding in, a child behind the glass,?
Watching faces in the dark as nameless cars would pass.
I’d asked my mother then, “Why do they sleep outside?”
?She didn’t answer fully, just wiped a tear and sighed.?
“Some people lose more than they should. Some never had a chance.”?
And quietly, I mourned them, through my innocence-glance.
Now grown, I grip the wheel, my coat pulled to my chin,?
Warm coffee in the holder, dry and safe within.?
I carry bags of burdens, yes, but also food and flame—
?A roof, a bed, a blanket, a mailbox with my name.
And still it humbles me, this ache that never mends,?
To know some call the silence home, and cardboard walls their friends.?
That rainy night reminded me how fragile ‘having’ is—
?And how a heart can still break twice for someone else’s kids.
I wonder what became of them—that shape lost in the gray,?
The soul beneath the overpass I passed again today.?
Did someone see their shadow too, and offer them a hand??
Or did they fade into the storm, like footprints in the sand?
Did they find a place to rest where rain no longer seeps,
?Where hunger doesn’t gnaw at ribs and silence gently sleeps??
Or did the cold outlast them, as it does so many nights,
?Where sorrow tucks the nameless in and turns off all the lights?
I’ll never know the answer, though it lingers in my chest,?
This fragile, fleeting moment I cannot lay to rest.?
But every time I see that space, now etched beneath the sky,?
I whisper hope into the wind—that someone helped them try.
Copyright ©
Tracy McBride
|