Beggar’s Diary

Watch, Watch 
The sated faces,  
the pretty faces,  
weary from long walks through my city’s splendor.  
They came in couples, 
In rowdy packs, 
Rarely  
Solitary,  
They hold babies by small chubby hands.  
Somewhere, a righteous woman shouts through a bullhorn; 
Her protest is muffled 
By the stillness 
Of the day.  
They come 
In hordes,  
In herds, 
Eager, curious, cranky and fractious.  
It is only noon; 
A thousand 
Brittle little dramas are yet to be staged.  
They come as an invasion, much too far 
From the nearest Starbucks.