A poor woman, my modesty

Where is the roof that shelters me
The man that wishes to uphold my honor
Where the family, its sanctity
The love and its fecundity,
Its ardor

The cracked cement that is my mattress,
The news of yesterday my quilt,
Much warmth and comfort have I,
All that, poverty, my mistress
Brings, is guilt.

Feigning sleep I shudder inwardly,
A car and a truck stop advertently,
I close my eyes tight, brace myself,
A net falls over,
I hear the shuffle of feet.

Trapped, I kick
Hit soft flesh
A little girl child, I kicked
Its only a blanket, fresh.

She retreats, I look wildly
Clutch what she with covered me
Familiar obscenities rail at me,
As a truck driver cusses me
I turn to see a fleeing figure.

Back in the warmth of her car
Her people there to comfort her,
She gloats over the charity she met out
With a blanket she aint bought.

Its cold, all ice
A Canadian winter
Imagine I hither
In the comfort of my room
The misery and the gloom
Of that modest woman
the girl child am
I, grown now, a woman,
I see femininity bartered and slandered
Every body has a price.