Outside on the park bench, her heart skips a beat- a shadow's passed by.

The crickets have thawed.
They continue to stretch their chuckling bones.

There is a key in the dark,
A woman fearing to leave the light.
Her purse has five hundred dollars.

Her car snores softly beside the sidewalks on which runners nonchalantly run, and walkers nonchalantly walk.

It is not fear that immobilizes her,
But its trailing shadow:
The fact that it left without so much as a glance,

Without so much a trace,
As if she wasn't worth threatening.