Parking my car, with Grace

It wasn't easy wiping the diet coke off
my least-favorite pair of charcoal work slacks.

The homeless man, leaning up against the live oak
saw me grab the sandy towel from the back seat
as I furiously rubbed the y area of my body.

In hindsight, I should have had more tact.
I was in the churh parking lot my job rents
for employees to park their sedans and SUV's.
I was rubbing my crotch for God's sake!

The man against the live oak watched me,
as I locked my car, and pulled the handle-
double checking-
and slung an over-priced purse over my shoulder.

I said, "Good morning sir," but he said nothing back.
He continued to lean against that ancient live oak.

I guess there is nothing to say to the girl with
all the calories extracted from her morning drink,
and the diet granola bar in the other hand.

A homeless man in a nearly-vacant church parking lot
sounds like the opening scene in a southern novel-
one that moves at a sticky, humid,
south-of-the-mason-dixon-pace and is delightfully
melancholy- plot driven- and bitter sweet until the end.

For me, it's more like a teen magazine. The girl gets out
of her Lexus with a shitty drink from the Conoco.
Face half-covered with sunglasses, and thinking her day
is ruined, like her pants, because of her unfortunate luck.
(And, dammit, she's always late to work.)

This girl, unlike the onlooking homeless man,
likes to be a little on the hungry side.

And no one would waste a novel on that.