It didn’t seem important

It didn’t seem important –

not at the time.

Just another poor man

dressed like the bums

who came knocking at the back door

when I was a kid.

Remember?

You do if you’re old enough,

and didn’t live in a fancy house

with a fence and a gate

to keep the riff-raff out.

It didn’t seem important.

We gave him a meal,

a good hot meal,

with a nice dessert,

and seconds until we ran out.

That seemed like enough.

It really did.

I even brought him coffee –

cream, lots of sugar –

when he came in early,

as he always did.

It didn’t seem important – 

at least not to me.

Handing him the cup

I could smell the booze,

the old stale smell

of cheap booze.

He’d slur a “thankya,”

but missing all those teeth

he was hard to understand,

so I’d just nod and

hurry back to the kitchen.

It didn’t seem important –

until he died.

They found him lying there,

early on a cold morning,

curled up on the hard ground

behind the bushes,

right outside the door,

of the soup kitchen.

It just didn’t seem important

to talk with him

or pray with him

…and so I never did.