Shame, like whiskey, is not for children.
Shame is no laughing matter.
If there is a mote of hubris left in you,
homelessness can beat it out
like a washerwoman beating a rug.
My first hour with an empty cup outstretched
taught me that invisibility had
always been in my grasp. Shame
tastes like too many cigarettes
staving off our unspeakable hunger.
A version of this story originally appeared in the January/February 2017 issue of Pacific Standard as a sidebar to “Street Scribes.”
