Stand Off

Look at these eyes:
wide, brown, human,
& searching to find your own, Officer,
behind the reflective visor of your hard helmet
mirroring me back to myself:
shrewd, desperate woman confronting.

See that you may know me
as the mother I might be,
or sister, friend to your own,
with the same sort of make-up tricks,
care for hair dye.

Vanity, want, need:
and maybe all this is just as futile,
being out here in the frigid bitterness
with heat only the crowd’s passion
facing some injustice
as it turns out it must
but maybe not reaching,
being touched back
by one thing humane.