Now that the route was mine,
\nI could buy a new bike like his,
\nI thought, and imagined how I looked
\nas I climbed uphill wearing the bag<\/p>\n
a kind of uniform, with its broad
\norange band crossing my chest.
\nNobody watched from the windows
\nexcept the old woman in a bathrobe<\/p>\n
who called me into her dim room
\nto sit with her while she spread
\nher newspaper out on the table,
\npulling the small letters under<\/p>\n
the pool of her magnifying glass.
\nWhen she let me out at last
\nin the twilight, the houses were gone
\nto shadow. Was this the apartment<\/p>\n
my brother had shown me in the peeling
\ntriple-decker? Was this the right
\ntriple-decker? The man inside
\nwho shouted at his wife wouldn’t<\/p>\n
come to the door. And what was I to do
\nunder the streetlamp about the three
\nleftover newspapers in my bag
\nand the ache in my shoulder<\/p>\n
from carrying it, too young to understand
\nthe poverty and loneliness on that hill
\nof streets, or how what you thought
\nyou owned could own you.<\/p>\n\n
Explore an earlier version of this poem through two\u00a0questions about craft.<\/p> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n