There was a homeless lady,
one afternoon, outside the hospital.
Was she homeless? I don’t know.
She had a ladened shopping cart,
which, on TV, is kind of a signature.
We were inside, waiting for an Uber.
She was outside, in chiaroscuro relief.
Dressed in bright, multilayered, mismatched
florals and brocades, she reminded me
of a gypsy. There are still gypsy caravans
in France. Are there gypsies in America?
She wore boots and long strings of beaded jewelry.
They would have had to have been glass, I supposed,
but tinseled with the glitter of those pop spangles,
she looked, en bloc, the richest and the poorest of us.
She wasn’t young and she wasn’t old. She sat alone,
on a short retaining wall, her cart within guarded reach.
I noticed her because every time I glanced over, she
was watching me with the dark unblinking eyes of a bird.
She had an easy confidence, in the wild, sitting safe
and protected by her clam, obstinate shell of boredom.
What must I look like to her - with her tangled hair
and unwashed face? Me in my permanent pressed
hospital wear, diminished by over-washing. A doll
behind glass, whose whole life is patterned by plans?
Our Uber pulled up, the number matched and as Lisa
opened the car door, I gathered my things and looked
back but the gypsy lady was gone, leaving a blank space.
BLT Marriam Webster word of the day challenge: Obstinate: "stubborn people who refuse to change in spite of reason.”
http://daweb.us/mmp3/the.gypsy.mp3
chiaroscuro = an art style using strong contrasts between light and dark
en bloc = at once, both
*I used the term Gypsy because it’s the most instantly recognized. In the UK, Gypsies is a legal term used for their protection act. The French say ‘gitans’ but they are more popularly known as the Romani people or Tinkers, and Travellers. I’ve read that the term “Gypsy” can be used as a slur but not in the context used here.
