She was not old enough to have graduated high school, nor aware enough to notice how many eyes were on her, sympathetic or disdainful or hungry, as she struggled to push a cart full of pull-ups and cleaning supplies in a cart with a broken wheel
through the warm and somniferous glow of ill-maintained streetlights,
those obelisks of granite.
Don't call it pity,
but something stirred my gut, and burned my eyes,
as she trudged past me, pushing a cartload of motherhood, trailing a warm autumn breeze, an aromatic telegram;
lilac and lavender, a diffident bouquet, accented by spritely vanilla,
withering before bleach-fumes and mordant disinfectant.