1932.(Poem)

 
   At Twelfth Street and Fifth Avenue 
   in front of the old Longchamps 
   one frigid winter morning, as 
   I watched for the bus to come, 
 
   I saw a dark unshaven man 
   whose skin was snowy pale 
   set up a stand at the corner. He 
   had bright red apples for sale 
 
   a nickel each, but no one stopped 
   to look: they walked on by. 
   He stood there coatless, shivering, 
   with a fever in his eye 
 
   until a small blonde shape appeared, 
   a child of three or four, 
   who came from nowhere I could see-- 
   no one accompanied her. 
 
   She wore a blue wool coat, fur-trimmed 
   to warm her wrists ...