Every Saturday my lover and I
\nGathered with the other well-fed
\nvolunteers to load meals into a van,
\nand then drive to our stations in
\nManhattan to hand them out,
\nOne-by-one.<\/p>\n
Mothers pushing strollers with
\nCrack-glazed eyes, and
\nOld men in ill-fitting overcoats
\nlined up outside Harlem Hospital
\nIn the bitter cold
\nWaiting for the van.<\/p>\n
The grand meal consisted of
\ntwo slices of white bread with
\ntwo slices of lunch meat,
\nan apple, and a half-pint of milk.
\nFor those gifts, people waited
\nsometimes hours for the us\u00a0to
\narrive.<\/p>\n
One cold February night,
\nWe’d handed out over 100 meals,
\nAnd when we got to the last man
\nIn line, there was nothing left.
\nHe looked into my eyes and
\na tear slipped down his cheek.<\/p>\n
I took a \u00a020 dollar bill
\nout of my pocket,
\nput it in his hand
\nand walked\u00a0all the
\nway downtown
\nas the snow fell.<\/p>\n
I never went back.<\/p>\n
Yet, to this day, decades later,
\nI still remember that man,
\nand the meteor-like impact
\nhe made on my soul.
\nHe made me feel his hunger,
\nThe unfairness of his life,
\nHis longing for warmth,
\nAnd how little I could do
\nWith a single tear.
\n.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Every Saturday my lover and I Gathered with the other well-fed volunteers to load meals into a van, and then drive to our stations in Manhattan to hand them out, One-by-one. Mothers pushing strollers with Crack-glazed eyes, and Old men in ill-fitting overcoats lined up…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":708,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,441],"tags":[1796,387,29],"class_list":["post-24150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem","category-poetry-prompt-responses","tag-homeless","tag-hunger","tag-winter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/708"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24150"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24276,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24150\/revisions\/24276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}