As An Under-Employed, First-Generation, Filipino-American University-Graduate
by Dan Encarnacion


(on Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley)


The fourth day of fall.
I saw a brittle brown
Leaf from a street-tree,
Crimped like a claw,

Drop at the lotus knees
Of a homeless man
Begging. The leaf
Landed lightly on

Dry, veined tips.
He was a young white
Man. I couldn’t engage
His unenlightened eyes.






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