Intentions

I truly meant to return
to the young woman playing
the Japanese Shamisen in the
public square of the
market whose exotic
colourful presence plucking the
instrument of her homeland the
pretentiously cosmopolitan
crowd of busy shoppers
appeared oblivious to.

Instead it was another
young woman who approached,
boldly, baldly beseeching "loose change"
in a manner starkly at odds
with her neatly well-appointed
wardrobe. While others pushed past
I fumbled for change, finding little
and she observing bills
offered to take one off my hands

giving me change to the value
of six dollars for a ten, to enable her,
she said dolorously, to buy food
for her dinner. Impulsively
thrusting a ten into her outstretched hand,
spurning her change, she smiled,
pronounced a blessing from god
upon me, then briskly
walked on to continue her trade.