This poem comes from an actual occurrence that happened years ago. The memory is so vivid as is the question that still haunts me.

From the window

of my car

I see dusk fall.

Down a side street

walks a crumpled man

with a small girl

on his shoulders.

Her hair catches

the scattering sunlight.

Are they headed home

to a crumbling apartment

in the distant rundown neighborhood?

I turn away.

To my right,

glass sky scrapers

scrape the sky.

Wealth and poverty

side by side.

There is not enough

and never enough.

I continue down the free way,

haunted by the small girl

with the shining hair.

What will become of her?