A Woman Named Joy

She wears an old university sweatshirt
punctuated by slumped breasts.
A ribbon diploma pinned to her chest reads:
‘I can dress myself.’
A ghost-ship ploughs by daily,
funnels blow fog, horns blare,
as she wades through the neon air,
beneath the train tracks where
she hauls out the wreckage from refuse sacks.
Past coffee houses, health clubs,
where men in shorts
who raise tanned knees
wrestle machines.
In the square, tinny music plays amplified
and she twirls from side to side
a bauble on a tree;
children peer in,
monster reflections laugh, horrified.
A gnome of the street,
to the hairs on her chin,
she sits by the gutter
fishing for dimes
by a plastic cup wishing-well
to catch pennies in.