her chance

Bursa, Turkey

the woman on the metro

with a burned leg - you remember her clearly
how she sat after dragging her bad leg

into the compartment
this image of her
alone
cold
scared
in pain
how did it happen? why is she alone?
on a cold night in a flimsy sweater

her skin below the knee
running to her ankle
all burned away
exposing blood red lines

her abstract expression
her sacred scared distracted face
watching night fly past windows
where blue televisions and children eye each other

how she kept going
on the metro past a stop
where the expensive private hospital on a Roman
hill gleamed its extensive intensive pensive care
ward and her treatment was delayed
forgotten useless
here

because she is poor
so she stayed in her seat
anxious now feeling her pain
wondering where she would go
where she would end up this night

as a stranger studied her anxious passive 
expression feeling burns, violent burns
inside sensations fire and heat
nerve impulses darting through

along sensory
channels where signals blocked by
neurotransmitters shut down
her chance

One man

Greetings,

One morning after noodles I wander down an alley. I make an image of a man, maybe 60 - hard to be precise - in an alley sitting alone, sharpening an edge, redefining the steel. His labor, simple tools. No left foot. He curled his leg stump back to rest it on a boot. He went to work.

In the afternoon I'm sitting along a sidewalk near the market. He walks past with a shuffling gait. He's wearing a green fatigue shirt, hat, motorcycle helmet, carrying his red plastic bag with his simple tools.

I watched him walk. Knowing his truth, not knowing his story. Perhaps a land mine or a stray bullet. His left boot is an old combat boot issued to soldiers. A discarded war object. It is splitting down the front.

It is brutally hot. The sun is behind him. I wonder how he feels? Where is he going? Home for lunch and a rest? Looking for more dull edges?

I am surrounded by amputees here. They come to me on their crutches, their hands out. They wheel themselves down the street on little trolleys. A one-armed young man wears an old blue baseball hat. He sees local businessmen approaching. They are wearing white pressed shirts, leather shoes and shiny silver bet buckles. He takes off the old hat. Holds it out. It is empty. They ignore him. He puts it on his arm stump, runs his one good hand through his black hair, puts his cap on and moves down the street.

The legless, armless armies of physically wounded humans. They know you and you know them.

Metta.