Grace

I envy people who can sleep
on a bus or a train, heads bowed
as if in prayer. Unafraid to
close their eyes in public.
I can’t sleep on a hard bench
wrapped in a ratty blanket I stole
from the women’s shelter without
unbuckling this pair of too-tight,
two sizes too small low-rise jeans
my caseworker, Gladys, bought
from the thrift store in downtown
San Francisco. I’m jealous
of the photograph she keeps
in a gold frame on her desk
while reviewing my paperwork—
a giggling girl in figure skates
gliding across glistening ice,
she never falls, maybe she’s
named Grace and isn’t afraid
like me in my worn-out boots
with a broken zipper tripping
over curbs. Grace’s grin
follows me everywhere:
dangerous nights down Eddy Street,
dull mornings past
bodegas selling stale bread
(I bet Gladys buys fresh bagels)
caddy-corner to coin-operated
laundromats where I feed
quarters to a machine stuffed
with stained, secondhand clothes
I never outgrow—I can’t imagine
Gladys letting Grace leave home
in pants that didn’t fit, or shrinking her
favorite tops. My mother destroyed
my Van-Halen t-shirt, threatened
to chop off my hair, send me to
school naked. Grace wouldn’t
look so cute, half-bald, whizzing
around the rink in a ripped blouse.
She wouldn’t last a day in my house.
By freshman year, my mother glared
at my failing grades, warned if I ever dropped
out of Rutgers, she’d disown me;
two years later, I’m running
away from a man with a dirty
mustache who steals my ID, rips off
my scarlet dress—like Grace
I am balanced on a blade.