For the Woman Crying at Kohl's by P.C. Scheponik

She was sitting on the bench in front of Kohl’s department store,
her blonde hair pulled back into a pony tail, the kind my sisters
used to wear when they were girls. She was wiping her eyes and
eating what looked like a sandwich of some kind, picking up
the small pieces that fell on her blouse, the color of peaches.
She was crying as she reached into her pocket, took a tissue,
and dabbed her eyes. I wanted to go over and tell her I was
sorry. I wanted to give her a hug and tell her it would be all
right. But she was huddled in the shadow that was hugging the
wall, and I felt a barrier—invisible—yet it still gave me pause.
I didn’t know her or the cause of her grief at all, and I had no
right to assume I could make a move to comfort her, to stop her
tears, to prove better days were, in fact, coming. So I walked
away, the sense of her grief pressing down upon me. How could
it be—this thing called empathy—this impulse to feel another’s
misery, yet not able to heal it, to take it away, to only be
permitted to watch and see the ordeal, to sigh for her, even cry
for her, maybe even pray for her from afar. So I wrote these
words for, you, the woman crying at Kohl’s on a Tuesday
morning. And though you may never read them, never know I
was able to bleed them for you, though I could not close your
wound, at least I can honor its scar.



P.C. Scheponik is retired. He is a lifelong poet who lives by the sea with his wife, Shirley, the love of his life and his shizon, Bella. He has published four collections of poetry and has been published in numerous journals.