Cairo, 2008
Published in
Nov 29, 2020
Sonnet © 2020 Matthew de Lacey Davidson
With dark brown empty eyes, I can’t forget her face;
her two small boys (their blanket is the sky
at night) are close. Their laundry’s on a rope and stiff.
But more confounding than a hieroglyph
is how she came to be here in this place.
Did her husband beat her? Did he die?
Was she unmarried? Does it matter? Fear
is palpable upon the street. A mere
twenty dollars — in her skeletal hands. My wife and I
give her food as well. My thoughts cohere,
confronted by reality: so if
the hand I hold is good, then might I bluff
myself? It’s better that I never hear
my haunting thought: I did not do enough.
