poverty

I saw his bed first – a sleeping bag covered by a blue tarp outside a bus shelter on a busy Toronto corner, but it was neither sheltered nor private. A steady stream of people passed it on their way to the nearby offices, shops and hospitals, collars turned up against the cold. Descending the steps to the subway, I saw a man in the corridor, sitting on a Webster’s dictionary. Another similarly-sized tome rested on a bag beside him; whether to sit on or read, I didn’t yet know.