For Veterans Day

Lunch Hour

Lunch furlough done,
I toss sandwich crusts
To the pigeon scratching crumbs
With stumps of amputated toes,
And my Diet Coke money
To the man behind the wilted cardboard sign
“Hungry, homeless, Vietnam Veteran.”

I don’t want to look at him.
His face looks like a puffball mushroom
That’s been stomped on for fun.

I’m wearing lipstick and a startched white shirt—
My 16^th floor ID dangles around my neck
Like a noose with my photo on it.

He doesn’t want to look at me either.

Neither of us wants to see another Indian looking back.

-- by Sara Littlecrow-Russell, Native American poet, single mother of two, lawyer, anti-racist organizer, and professional mediator.

From her award-winning book of poems, The Secret Power of Naming.