Catherine Chandler

To the Man on Mansfield Street

I have imagined countless reasons for
your sleeping on the hotel heating vent —
a lengthy layoff, months of unpaid rent,
a gambling debt, divorce, a private war.

Or was it something darker, maybe drink,
a need to fill your veins with heroin;
insanity, a secret or a sin
you couldn’t whisper to a priest or shrink?

The morning traffic soon will wake you up;
you’ll check there’s nothing missing from your bag;
you’ll bind your blisters with a dirty rag,
and later gauge the clinking in your cup.

I see the bright-eyed boy you surely were;
I see the tender infant, newly born,
the baby who, before the cross and thorn,
was given gold and frankincense and myrrh.

Unlike the offerings of wiser men,
all that I give you is a cigarette,
the time of day, some change, my mute regret.
Cop-outs ending in the word “Amen”.

Companion Piece

I was born in Flushing, Long Island, and, up to now, have usually been too embarrassed to say so, citing simply New York City as my birthplace. However, as I will now be published in The Shit Creek Review + II, I have decided to “come clean” once and for all. I lived in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania until 1971.

The man on Mansfield Street does exist. He sleeps outside the parking garage of the Bonaventure Hilton on Mansfield Street, Montreal, Quebec. I wrote this poem to acknowledge his life and those of street persons all over the world.