JOHN HOLLOWAY

Surprise, in Greenwich Village English visitor, in crowded dark, nearly stumbles on senior citizen foetus derelict, asleep on blackened sidewalk.

Rag boots, with laces also rag; ripped black coat, face greyer than beard, head pillowed on scrap Wall Street Journals.

Rain slight that night, but the litter drifts under honking cars or beside asleep derelict . . . visitor pours a trickle of quarters between knotted arms.

Human eyes open and ‘Many thanks indeed’, says a voice from Balliol; or Addison’s Walk where the purple fritillaries, this very day, nod by the hundred in a green silence . . . then snuggles firmly asleep again down in dirt, arms over money and terminates the encounter.