Blanket

by: Scott Waters

From the window
of our warm kitchen
the eastern sky
blushes like the cheek

of the young woman
in the pink parka
who spent the night
leaning against

a telephone pole
across the street
a white plastic bag
flapping on her

crossed legs
sidewalk cold
and hard under
her rump

Venus shining
like her mother’s
wedding ring
on the dresser

in her parents’
bedroom two
thousand miles
away where

mother hasn’t slept
since 2 a..m.
picturing
her daughter

sleeping on a
sidewalk across from
someone’s house
where someone

thinks about throwing
a blanket over her
shivering daughter’s
shoulders

but when the poem
is finished
before the sun is up
before the coffee cools

she is gone.

Scott Waters lives in Oakland, California.  He has published previously in The Blue Nib, The Pacific Review, Better Than Starbucks, and many other journals.  Scott’s first chapbook will be published by Selcouth Station, and his poem “I Could Be Anybody” has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.