I watched the blind beggar drag his body
into the shadow of Broad and Samson,
his hands like ash, his face half-covered
by an old hat he treats like an heirloom.
His cup was there, waiting like an open mouth,
the faint sound of coins bouncing against
its tin skin, each ping like a cracked bell
calling for something bigger.
He could tell a nickel from a dime by the way it settled,
its spinning stopped cold, and he must have felt
the difference between mercy and mockery—
the penny tossed by a man with rings on all his fingers,
the same man who spat once and crossed the street.
And the sign beside him, “Love Your Neighbor,”
written in some shaking hand, curling at the edges,
greasy with fingerprints by a friend in exile
bent away and ashamed of this kingdom.
I think about the weight of his bag, the bottle tucked
under his coat, warm against his ribs—his only comfort—
and I wonder about the composer of that sign, if he believed it,
if he too sat here once, holding out his hands.
He knows the sound of justice, the ache of an empty cup,
the slow, careful way hope folds itself into a corner
and waits for someone who knows its name.
And I want to ask him if he remembers
a song or a prayer, or if he only listens now
to the shuffle of shoes, the endless clicking
of heels on pavement, the city moving past him,
never stopping. Would he recognize my breath
if I knelt and dropped a quarter wrapped in a twenty
or would I become just another sound,
another dull thud in the cup’s wide-open mouth?
Tim Gavin is an Episcopal priest. In addition to his most recent publication, A Radical Beginning (Olympia Publishers, 2023), he is the author of Lyrics from the Central Plateau, a chapbook of poems released by Prolific Press in November 2018. His articles, essays, and poems have appeared in The Anglican Theological Review, Barrow Street Review, Blue Heron Review, Blue Mountain Review, Cape Rock, Chiron Review, The Cresset, Grow Christians, Digital Papercut, Evening Street Review, Library Journal, Magma, Poetry Quarterly, Poetry South, Poetry Super Highway, and Spectrum. He lives with his wife, Joyce, in Newtown Square.