Red-Handed - June 27, 2025

twenty years ago a homeless man

said   nobody loves you

as I passed him on the sidewalk

he’d caught me red-handed,

unmasked my weak smile

and weaker confidence

exposed my lifelong secret

of floundering unloved

in this world

strange how this lost soul

himself, out of the blue, drilled

and uncovered my secret

even stranger, another one

tested me again on that very

subject the other day

but I’d done the hard work

over those forty plus years

try to imagine how freeing

I felt saying, Oh, are you

wrong, there are so

many that love me

turn my back

and walk away