The city was grey and wet.
Puddles glanced off treads of passing tires,
soaking the tired feet of
brisk-walking pedestrians.

No one noticed the boy in the corduroy jacket.
Hunched over, bracing against a bitter wind,
the boy studied his laces as he walked,
ducking silently through crowds
of jostled shoulders and stiff faces.
Cold, hard metal burnt a hole
through his inside jacket pocket.
Sharp right turn. Silence.
A mumbled promise escaped chapped lips
and echoed softly off brick walls,
as trembling fingers grasped steel
and squeezed.

It wasn’t until morning,
when the mail man decided to take
A shortcut through the alley
Behind his ex-girlfriend’s apartment,
That someone, finally,
noticed the boy
in the corduroy jacket.