a city reader

 

PAPERS

For Christmas 

I gave the person who

puts the Times

outside my morning door 

$20.

I waited inside  

until I heard the paper land.

I hurried into the hallway then

to find 

a short Latinx woman in 

jeans with her red 

beanie pulled down.

We’d never seen each other.

She was likely 

undocumented and shy and 

uncertain when I

came toward her with an envelope.