Nothin’ like a fresh start-
I saw a pretty girl with smooth legs an’ a bold spirit
Full o’ hope that a guy like me would turn h’self around long ‘nough to stay good.
She tol’ me of her schoolin’, her travels, an’ her times.
She had an opinion ‘bout everythin’
Includin’ ‘bout me.
She said she wish’d I hadn’t gone wrong an’ done anythin’ dangerous.
“Society expected better”, she said, in a way not so unkind.
She knows much and shines from the inside like the patent leather heels she wears.
They glint in the sun o’ the early day while I am blinded by my burdens.
The bus comes an’ goes too soon and now I stand alone somewheres ‘tween the past four yea’s inside and the future.
For a second, I think about leavin’ b’hind the plastic bag.
A partin’ gift from the p’role board.
Just a bare-bones re-lo-cation kit, empty with abundance or promise.
‘Stead, I walk t’ the next stop an’
All I can see are them shoes—them brilliant shoes—untarnished an’, high-steppin’.
(On a chance encounter one Saturday morning in South Carolina)-NGM
