I do think of them, the couple
sleeping on the steps of the church
up the street from our hotel.
I passed twice, on my way
to the cafe and back again
with coffee. Still they slept,
back to back, exactly
as my wife and I sleep.
I couldn’t see the woman’s face,
only the man’s: my own
thin beard, pointed cheekbones
and nose, like a picture of me
had been snuck there
where I’d find it. They lay
on flattened boxes so close
that the doors would hit them
if opened from within. A bag
of their things even hung
from the knob. Their ruined shoes
stood in a line against the wall,
and their feet were black from walking.
Then they were waking up
and I went past as if I’d never
stopped. But they followed me
through the day, and even now
I think of them as lucky.
I have gone nowhere.
My feet are so smooth.
Header photograph © Jason D. Ramsey.
Marley Stuart is an Assistant Editor of Louisiana Literature and a graduate of the Bennington Writing Seminars. His stories and poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in The Chattahoochee Review, Permafrost, Painted Bride Quarterly, Xavier Review, The Healing Muse, L’Éphémère Review, The Rising Phoenix Review, Occulum and About Place. He and his wife, the writer Kimberly Dawn Stuart, live in New Orleans and direct the small press River Glass Books.
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