Brown Paper Bag

Brown paper bag

Squalid incomplete

slumped to the side of the street

Like unwanted sacks of garbage

She left her track her smell

And like the brown paper bag

She had travelled well

She had a whole world in her head

Her first love

The man she wed

And the drink and the smoke

And the four o clock bloke

That returned with a bottle in a brown paper bag

And better days before

When she had carried her first round fruit

When the brown paper bag was waxed new

And he carried his bride to the door

Then the four o clock bloke

Full of stale wine and stale smoke

With a bottle in a brown paper bag

How he called her a hag

And that first punch to the floor

And the brown paper bags fell by her side

Crumpled and stained

And the liquor cans and the four o clock man

Who never spoke

Left her broke

Bones shattered in pieces

Flesh bare to the wind

Body out on the street

Skin tanned dirt brown

Hair matted locks

And two brown paper bags tied with string to her feet

yvette m smith 11.2.09

poem by Yvette Smith
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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