what i saw

A young Bob Dylan, carrying a backpack and wearing winter boots on a summer day in October.

A girl in a Halloween costume though I don’t know what she was supposed to be.

A girl with purple hair, but that’s nothing.

I saw a guy in a yellow X’d, orange city-worker jacket driving a brand new silver Cougar convertible.

And a woman of about sixty wearing all lime green who sat herself down on the sidewalk of a downtown street, back against a brick wall, big smile as if she was about to open a picnic basket, and just along a bit, a young lad with lip piercings minding a baby in a stroller. He held his phone in one hand but was transfixed by the woman in green.

I saw a woman of thirty-something in a pink sweatshirt, and a beautiful girl child, maybe five or six years old, with curly yellow hair and a pink toy stroller that kept getting caught in the wind and being blown about whenever the girl let go, which she found so funny. “Look, mummy!” she yelled, laughing as the stroller kept moving by itself on the sidewalk. But the mummy was looking at her phone. For a good five minutes she stared at her phone while the beautiful girl child played with her stroller and the wind. Finally, mummy stopped looking at her phone and took a picture of the girl child before herding her into the car (minivan). That photo is probably up on FB or Twitter by now, looking for all the world like she spent even a moment with the kid.

A line of people waiting for the soup kitchen to open.

I saw a guy in a long fur coat like something out of the 60’s.

And a young woman with shaking hands and unfocussed eyes who asked politely for some change. I said yes. She said thank you.

And that was that.