I’m sure we’ve all seen sleeping bags under bridges, in culverts, people dossed down in doorways. Does giving money help? Or is a smile, a greeting, enough? Low-cost housing in every city on the continent would help …
THE ADDRESS
he lived under bridges 
north south sea to sea
here back
ten years plus
come summer
breeze blows downriver
ripples water
people’s chatter
Founder’s Day
he picks up tired hot-dogs
forgotten fries
winter puts newspaper 
under an arch
begs Sally Ann duvet
sleeps in clothes
lifted from garage sales
some nights he near freezes
to cold clear stars
who would house him
with no job
no Social Insurance Number?
he owns only
his name
A Summer Father … Here is poetry … interweaving images culled from a wartime childhood with bittersweet memories of a “summer father”. Lynda Monahan
1960willowtree 