SUNSHINE
Kakali Das

Her nickname “sunshine” where she worked,
She’s always smiling, some confide.
She has a certain lilting perk
Of hidden beauty deep inside.
Her journey home was twenty miles
Of mostly dark, forbidding streets,
Of tenements and garbage piles
And people none would seek to greek.
In such a spot her tire blew out.
She stopped beside a littered curb.
Abandoned cars and distant shouts,
Of breaking glass and cursing words.
The twilight turned a sooty grey,
As five approached, all wearing hoods.
She kicked the tire and yelled “No way”.
They bared their heads, they understood.
She had a gift to win a heart.
The group joined in to change her flat.
She tried to pay the five, their part.
They “high fived” hands and that was that.
She lived alone, her little home.
Her drive-away was a welcome sight.
A long weekend she earned and owned
To sleep or surf the net all night.
Her drapes inched down and met the window sill.
The hand with dirty fingernail grew still.
She made a hurried circle to the Vet.
They told her “Bud” had been a nervous chore.
She told of his uncanny sense of threat
Her Rottweiler was first one through the door.
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