Convenience’s Lost Cause

She had a bike-chain necklace and a pair of wire cutters hung from a belt loop that were dangling at her gorgeous hips. I’d never seen someone who was so profoundly not anyone’s type. Her lips were pinched. Her eyes like stalactites. And the way she chewed gum was the best sight this side of 6th Avenue. Everyone knew her walk and her nickname and the stodgy crowd she never ran with. I had one of her handwritten poems on my refrigerator door.