Reverse widow posts letters

I walked past what should have been a Greek widow. She was hunched and curled under the weight of her years trailing reams of translucent monochrome cloth. She was walking bent into the sunlight holding a high hand, palm turned out to keep the sun from her eyes.

She angled her dark eyes up from under her arc and angle surprising me with the depth of her joyous smile. She nodded and shuffled on her way. I stood quiet and motionless clutching my bundle of letters. I glanced down and saw for the first time the lack of joy in my black hair, regulation standard issue arts blacks and my poorly made fair trade sneakers.

Pivoting on the ball of my left foot I turned to see the old woman laugh as her headscarf unfurled and ripped colour across the concrete canyon. Her clothes were all dyed the same colour. Red. The kind you imagine rippling against a white hot desert sky. Sahara red.

Its time for change. There is a pressing forwards I've been ignoring, sitting back turned to the world threading and re-threading the same strands through broken needles. I'm clutching at my mended parts pulling at scars and wondering if they'll hold. There's been enough healing. Its time to walk forwards.