As I stepped up to the woman she said, “This is my second time to be homeless.” “Where do you live now,” I asked her as I knelled down on the hot concrete? She smiled as if to hide her answer while rolling her eyes, “We live under an old tractor trailer bed.” I did not ask who the “we” was in her statement and moved to my next question…
“Where is the tractor trailer?” She grinned again, this time stating, “Oh, I’m not telling you - - We did live over there [pointing at a nearby motel], the rooms were about this big [motioning at the doorway she was sitting in front of].” She then looked down and took her glasses off, “We got kicked out because we could not come up with the full $550 and the woman who owned it died and the person running it now kicked us out, she would not have done that if she were still living.”
She later told me that she sells The Contributor newspaper, asking if I would like one. “I also write poems,” she told me with a laugh. “What are your poems about,” I asked with interest? She told me one of her poems was about coffee, another she wrote for the local Domino’s Pizza man and it is about pizza.
See her poems below:
Pizza
By Deborah Mehon/Roehm
I could eat pizza everyday
But that, I’m afraid,
that would be too much.
Once a week is enough,
That way it won’t go to my butt.
Coffee
By Deborah Melton/Roehm
My morning coffee wakes me up,
But sometimes just not enough.
Then there are mornings
I want to stay in bed
And let the day go by instead.