Corner Poetry Girl
Karin Hedetniemi
As it happened, we were in downtown Ashland, Oregon, on a rainy Sunday night—a motel stopover to rest from the weary miles of the I-5. Shops closed, owners away on winter vacations. There was the absence of an earlier strong wind, the relief was that it had now moved on to other towns, other places.
Ashland Creek was in a frenzy with runoff from the downpour. It was loud, presenting some anxiety for sensitive people like me. I couldn’t tell if my heart had another palpitation, my body had another low blood sugar crash, or if the creek was just surging audibly through my chest.
On the way to dinner, Gary and I passed the same unhoused man who had earlier been in the bakery — sitting at the farthest back corner, cradling a cup of coffee, watching everyone with dark knowing eyes. Gary had approached him and, placing his hand gently on his shoulder, leaned in close and asked if he might buy him a bowl of soup. The man said no, he was doing okay, and besides, he was vegan. He could not eat the daily special: creamy tomato soup, long and stringy with gruyere.
Now, the bearded, scruffy man was on a bench by the creek. He raised his paper cup and said hello, he was watching the ‘Ashland Theatre’—looking across the street to people on the sidewalk, either noticing him or pretending not to notice him.
Around the corner, a girl was extending a woolen knitted hat, busking her poetry. Having no change, we smiled, shrugged politely, and entered the restaurant. Neither of us had much appetite, but we ordered food anyway. Gary called it ‘defensive eating.’ The alternative would have been to skip dinner but risk waking up hungry in the middle of the night.
I was hungry for a poem.
I asked Gary if he had any bills, then ran back into the street. “Hey, Poetry Girl!”
She turned around and brightened. “I glanced inside that window and wondered if you might return.”
“Would you sell me a poem for a dollar?”
She extended her hat. I could feel three rolled-up scrolls inside and thought, she’s doing well tonight if that’s all left. I selected one at the very bottom, a scroll of thick brown paper, her poem scrawled on the back of a torn Safeway grocery bag.
“That’s my husband’s favorite,” she said. “Do you want me to recite it for you?”
How could I say no? Poetry Girl spoke her poem there on the sidewalk, under the drizzly lights of Lithia Plaza.
Later, Gary and I walked up the hill to the cinema to see what was playing, take photos of the neon lights. I thought I might hold my bartered poem up to the glow, take a snapshot, and let it find a wider audience online, but I forgot about it until we got back to the motel. The only photos on my phone were bare tree branches: abstract shadows on the pavement, background performers for Ashland Theatre.
Karin Hedetniemi photographs and writes from Vancouver Island, Canada. Her creative work appears in Grain, Welter, Lunch Ticket, Pithead Chapel, EVENT, and other literary journals. In 2020, Karin won the Royal City Literary Arts Society’s nonfiction contest. Find her at AGoldenHour.com or on socials @karinhedet.