Part Three

Love

It’s funny, things that love does to a man…
the flower girl was failing to scrape by.
The bum maintained appearances for her,
she thought he was a pretty well-off guy.

He found employment sweeping dirty streets,
but every penny that he earned, he spent
to buy her wares, or bring her gifts of food,
or now and then to help her pay the rent.

Each day at noon he visited her flat,
and they would while an hour just the two,
and he’d describe a flower or a cloud,
sometimes he read the paper to her too.

One day, a headline that he read declared:
“A Doctor In Vienna has a Cure
for Blindness! Dr. Gustav von Bier,”
for every paying patient, sight was sure!

She gasped, and trembled; clenched his dirty hand,
The one thing that her useless eyes could do,
produce a tiny trickle of a tear.
She whispered softly “Then I could see you!”

The bum looked at his rags and dirty hands,
then back upon her tearful, hopeful face.
“I swear that you will have your sight, my dear!”
But troubled, he got up and left the place.

© Kenneth Henry, 2014

Based on Charlie Chaplin’s 1931 silent film classic, “City Lights.”  Visit the Introduction page to watch the movie.