A poem by Thomas Thornburg from Munseetown

Bag ladies are this season wearing
field-jackets gleaned from K-MART shoppers
and KEDS cast off by charioteers
on skateboards fleeing from the cops;
hooded and rope-cinched at their waists
(doomed matched-pairs shuffling westward),
vespers et matins in their quest
they toss and comb the city’s trash,
each empty can discovered, cash.
Sometimes drunk they will confess it,
and sometimes cough the alley retching
pink spittle in their sad kermess.
Sometimes we talk (they ask my pardon
for sifting through these things discarded)
of better homes and other gardens.