Gift Horse

"Don't look one in the mouth," my mother always instructed, referring to the infamous gift horse that as a child I always wondered when it would arrive. Would it be wrapped in a bow at my door? What about a pony--do they come in gift ponies? Where the hell would we keep it? The garage was packed to the gills, full of left-over pieces of wood from deconstruction projects my mother never finished, an old refrigerator that housed her boyfriend's agricultural "experiment" and two roll-away tool chests.

The pony/horse never came. But as time passed and bitterness shed, I came into a deeper realization of her intended meaning. Gratitude.

Which leads me to the subject of the homeless. I've heard grumbles and complaints, funnily enough from those with houses and jobs and not from those without, preceding wishes that they'd be eradicated from our city streets. Perhaps relocated to a more fitting (read: not in my way) setting.

But these street sleepers and corner panhandlers are my personal gift horse. Their unrestrained compliments, sometimes hard to decipher through the slurs, are like sweet nectar to a parched heart.

Like the charming gent who popped out from behind a dumpster to tell me that he wanted to call my mother. "OOOO, girl...I need to call your momma and thank her for your sweet ass." Then he snagged a piece of french fry stuck to his fro, popped it in his mouth and disappeared like a angel sent only to wish me well.

Or the old man who sat by the bus stop and watched me pass every morning as he breathed heavily through his lengthy labyrinth of tubing hooked to a portable oxygen concentrator. "Yer the girl who was here yesterday in that green dress," he remembered as I stood there, waiting.

"Good memory," I praised.

"Outstanding legs," he said with a lingering up-down eye sweep.

I beamed. Outstanding legs, god dammit--I have them!

Yesterday I rushed out the back door of my office building, exiting into the alleyway. "Busted!" declared a jovial voice. I peeked in the doorway kitty-corner to mine and I'll be damned if there wasn't a gift horse sitting right there, this one baring weed.

"Busted smoking reefer and drinking Guinness," he chortled, waving his right hand towards a dark brown glass bottle of beer while the other hung on loosely to a half-smoked joint. "I may be homeless but I still have class!" He pulled his sunglasses down his nose and peeked out from under his blue and white striped conductor hat, staring at me. He narrowed his eyes, the weed making them almost already shut as it were. "You want some reefer? It's good stuff...just sitting here, watching the clouds. Enjoying the good life, ya know."

Yah, I did know. And it never leaves you without a gift horse, the good life. There's one every where you look. Just refrain from looking in its mouth.