Scarecrow
Jessica Henkel
The first time I met him,
He was buying candles at the supermarket on the corner of Victory and Fallbrook.
He told me he was a foot doctor, in his mumbling and fidgety way.
And he scared me when he asked if I would take off my shoes.
I had often seen him sitting,
At the bus stop on that same corner.
Never begging for money,
Never without his shopping cart filled with junk.
He was like a statue, almost a monument in the San Fernando Valley.
We named him Scarecrow.
Later I found out that he had a house.
It was a rickety old house with a dried up, overgrown yard.
But nobody knew who Scarecrow really was.
He introduced himself as someone different every day.
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