Postcards from America

image by
Jim Goldberg.

Overtown

Zoe has been living under a tree with a man named Elijah.
I found her wandering the perimeter of the underpass
looking for a guy named Shorty who had something that she “needed”.

She could barely talk.
“I had a bad night last night,” she muttered.
Zoe’s right eye was swollen shut after being punched.
She left me looking for Shorty.

Later on, while walking through an empty lot nearby,
I found a wet photo album in a pile of trash.
It smelled awful so I just wrapped it up in plastic and put it in my bag.
I didn’t really look at it until I returned home.
Upon closer examination,
I realized that this was probably Zoe’s album.