Tall, plain with cropped hair,
in and out of eyeshot, she cradles
a box camera, savoring
Chicago’s street theatre.

On a gritty sidewalk, sitting alone,
worn laborer with dusty hands
eats a sandwich from its torn wrapper.

A carefree boy rolls a car tire
without a wobble.

Plump woman, hair in curlers, walks
with poise among passing strangers.

Smug and nifty, another woman,
azure eyes, color of her necklace,
flaunts her orange hat, matching coat.

A man buries his face in his knees
with his arm over his cap,
cocooned from hunger
and perhaps, shame.

Ready for a fun outing,
six kids laugh, crammed into
a station wagon with Grandma.

On the bus, old husband and wife
in their orbit, doze to the wheels’ hum,
her head on his shoulder,
face hidden under his wide brim hat.

With a cast of the 1950s and 60s,
the artist tells strangers’ stories,
dawn until dusk, through her keen lens,
when not sustaining herself as a hurried nanny.

She captures ordinary ironies
idling by, lost to others in their daily blur.