Poor Girl I Thought
A small scene observed from a distance — and the quiet hope of being wrong about it.
Some days you see something on a corner and the whole rest of the day is colored by what you imagined was happening. This is one of those days, written down.
Poor girl I thought
Standing from afar, I observed
Something sad that caught
My eyes; palpable, it pierced me
I don’t know why her story
Had unraveled before me
An old hunched back man beside her
Almost defeated, with a glimmer of sincerity
He had bought her ice cream
“Ah, her father!” I thought
They hardly said a word, it seemed
Her solemn smile a struggled pleasantry
As they walked away in silence
I couldn’t help but think
There was a sad story there
I hoped beyond hope that I was wrong
Most of the stories we project onto strangers are wrong. The hope is part of the noticing. Sometimes that’s all we get to do for them.
— JTC