My doctor’s-orders daily walk (with 11 ½ year old Loki, since her vet ordered the same for her) takes us many different places. We’ve explored segments of the El Dorado Trail, local schools when not in session, Placerville’s Main Street and alleys, even the backside of strip malls:
Where Do They Sleep Now?
It’s hung up, topsy-turvy and askew,
on a rock outcrop halfway down the slope –
a double mattress where two humans
used to lie in a home of their own to make
love, to sleep and dream. And then, home
gone, they lugged it up that steep, slippery
one-foot-in-front-of-the-other wish-
of-a-trail up the cut-bank behind the dollar
store, up into the woods where no one
would disturb them – they, like so many
unhoused, finding what shelter they could.
Until that clean-out-the-homeless-camps
campaign. Now it teeters between dropoff
and hard landing, waiting for a wind
or the weight of despair to bring it down.
~ Taylor Graham
