Opals, Emeralds, Diamonds
I stole a kiss
From the girl on the corner
Watched as her skin
Told me the tale
of a kid cursed to the curb

It’s like a song you sing as a child;
The girl giving kisses
To the boys on the street
The boys with smoke in their brains
And lips, smiling and sweet

She had given so much
Her heart was spread thin
But it does not beat for her
It    beats          for       him.

Him, who has enough silver in his fingers
Him, who pays, yet steals
Him, who steals the kisses
from the girl on the corner

The girl who had so much love in the days when she grew up in a small apartment looking over the river, the river in which she wished she could swim away in, carried away by the waters, but alas, the girl is stuck now handing out her heart on the corner, where she looks out on the buses crawling in and out of the station, none of them carrying her away.

Through the silky sheets lining us
I drew from her mouth words I wished not to hear
Slipped green paper in her fingers
Not for the sheets she tangled, but the heart that was twisted dry

Opals, Emeralds, Diamonds
She tells me she’s seen them all
In the eyes of the hungry,
Not the poor, but the hungry

Storytelling skin bundled up in a winter coat
The girl walks down the corner
At the bus station, she turned  and blew me a kiss.

Perhaps I’ll see her again one day.