When a Drain is Shelter

By Vincent R. Pozon

"A woman crawled out of a narrow drain at a busy street corner late in the afternoon on May 26 – her dress and denim shorts caked with grime, and her hair streaked with dirt and dried leaves". - The Strait Times

A woman pops out of a sidewalk
drain in daytime, in the middle
of traffic. Eyes on her. She smiles.

Dank, dark: a makeshift refuge,
she says. What stirs in the mind
to pause, stoop, peer into a hole?

What Rubicon is crossed to grip
the chipped lip of concrete, lower
legs into the gape, let gravity

take clothes, body, soul—scraping
against slick, cold walls? To slip
into the throat of the earth?

A woman pops out of a hole
we overlook daily, hurrying past—
noticed last when we were children,

in the rain, racing paper boats
along gutters, cheering as they
vanished into nowhere worth knowing.