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The Cart
A supermarket cart can carry everything a man owns from his bundle of rags to the silver foil trays that once held someone else’s food when he lives on Central Avenue and pushes it slowly past the pancake house to the cleanly swept steps of an office building filled with files and secrets where he rests a while in a silence that surrounds him like the winter sun. Day in, day out, up and down, walk a little, lean a little, walk more, sit down, push slowly and blend in with a wall when the time comes to sleep; so goes the time, breathing in, breathing out, always walking in the same pair of shoes, always sitting in the same place on Saturdays at ten, gradually becoming a fixture when we pass by still not knowing exactly what to say beyond a customary greeting to which he answers, after a long pause occasioned by surprise at being noticed at all, with a quiet acknowledgement and we move along to where we have to be while he remains with his life on four wheels and nowhere to push it toward.
David Chorlton Phoenix, Arizona
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