It is a damp gray morning in the fall of 1946.
A young woman stands alone on a railway platform in Detroit.
Her green dress looks almost black in the long shadows
though not as dark as the purse over her shoulder
and the small suitcase at her feet. She stands
quiet with her life in her eyes
watching the sleepy porters and a few young soldiers
who lounge not far away sharing the sports pages.
1946, a frustrating year for the Tigers.
All those men hustling after their little white ball
-better than throwing bombs down on cities at least;
and her crimsoned lips press in a slight smile suddenly
thinking that for one man somewhere, maybe in ’47, she’ll be
what he doesn’t dare take his eyes off.
He might want to believe she can’t catch a train
or face a gray Forties morning without his help;
he’ll have a lot to learn!
She removes her hat and touches at her brown hair
and replaces the hat with the sureness of knowing
she has always looked good in hats. There is
loneliness-she feels it as a chilly mist
in all the high shadows of the station—
but the war is over, which means that stupid harmfulness
is not the only truth about the world’s procedure,
and the train is due any minute
and America is going to have to realize it needs
a smart new secretary whose hat looks right.
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