By Misti Velvet Rainwater
Date: 12 February 2000

Recognition

i guess i didn't think
  anyone would ever
      notice
me standing in my bare
      feet and faded
blue jeans between Kmart
      and Wendy's
holding up a black posterboard
     with HOPELESS
scrawled across it in sloppy
     hot pink letters
but then i saw you
     looking at me
from across the street and
     it was neat because
you were holding up a 
      similar sign
and when you smiled and waved
     i tore my sign
        in half
and dodged the motorcycles and semis
      just so i
        could
       hug you