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These are meant to be read side by side, they're parallel. Also listen to "Lady" --Regina Spektor while you read http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0nUFgqSGus

The men pass the corner each day        

Chuckling as they turn to the street

Where a lady with emerald eyes sits.

 

The men linger in the stools at the bar down the street

Until their backsides are permanently imprinted in the leather.

They examine the repetitive pattern on their bottomless glass cups

As if it will fill their souls while the liquid fills their stomachs.

And the bartender refills their glasses

Tomorrow, maybe, they’ll stop drinking.

 

They’re delirious: broken wings, gauged hearts, black lungs.

A melody presses its nose up against the glass around their hearts.

But they’ve already been overthrown, shot down

 

The lights flicker.

The black man in the corner,

Dark enough that he could have touched Ethiope’s ear,

Plays the blues

So lachrymose that their sadness cascades

From deep within a place they were sure they’d sewn shut long ago.

 

But this steamy bar is the closest thing they have to home.

 

And the Men still pass that street corner

Where a lady with emerald eyes sits

When they leave just after three A.M.

As they part, little wet tears slip silently away from their tired eyes

For the first time in years.

 

And winter comes

And they remember.

 

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The lady sits on the corner each day

The corners of her chapped lips turned up kindly

As she pleads for change.

 

She only gets fourteen cents today and she smiles

Someone catapults a wad of spit onto her left cheek today and she smiles

Her children tummies grumble from the absence of a single meal all day but she smiles

The man at the shelter says “we haven’t got any more beds tonight”

And she walks back to the corner and smiles.

Tomorrow, maybe, a job will come her way.

 

And her children glance down at the desolate pavement;

They don’t want momma to know that they’re sad

That tonight they don’t have a warm place to sleep.

Momma’s trying her best.

 

And a crystalline blues seeps

From the warmth of the pub down the street,

A shade of indigo that stirs the Lady’s sloppy organs

That have marinated on a near corpse for months

And lain in a mess against her skeleton.

She pulls her knees closer to her chest and hums the sorrowful song

In attempt to fill the void that was opened long ago.

 

But this corner is the closest thing she has to home.

 

And the Lady still sits on the street corner

By a pub where the lonesome drunken men grow sour  

She gives up the cup and change menagerie just after three AM.

She watches them part as little wet tears slip silently away from her tired eyes

For the first time in years.

 

And winter comes

And she forgets.