Abigail Quick
Good Samaritan
I bought a homeless man lunch and I didn't tell anybody.
It was yesterday, outside the Quik-Stop.
It was raining and he offered me a light.
We stood there, under the awning,
exchanging war stories over soggy cheeseburgers.
He gave me the last drag of his cigarette –
Lucky Strike – and coughed out his memoir as the sun slipped away,
Conceding to the lightless dusk of night.
He told me about his dog, his high school baseball team,
About his wife that died, and his time in Kyiv.
I listened like a child begging for another bedtime story,
For the lights to never go out,
For dad to stay in bed until I fall asleep.
I never asked his name,
I didn't need to.
I just asked him how to be.
Bio
I am a teenage writer interested in using poetry to describe the world around me. I write not because I want to but because it feels like something I have to do, like eating or breathing. My favorite poems, both of other poets and of my own works, are the ones that make me sad. I think there is something intangibly beautiful about being moved to tears over written words--beautiful in a way that is different from crying during the part of the movie where your favorite character dies or when you see a particularly stunning work of art. I feel that all authors are artists who use words as their medium, similarly, all artists are authors who speak without words.