Crazy Mary Poem by John F. McCullagh

I never knew why she chose my sidewalk as her own;
Perhaps it was the subway grate that made it feel like home.
Children called her “Crazy Mary”; it became her sobriquet.
She would disappear each morning and God knows where she went.
Her face was bronzed from too much Sun, her tousled hair unkempt,
and, each night, she would return to my sidewalk where she slept.
She would huddle ’neath her blanket when we had a soaking rain.
On hot nights she was grateful for a breeze from a passing train.
For the well and well to do, Toronto’s a fine city.
But the winters here are always harsh; for the homeless it’s a pity.

One morning she did not awake, the police were called this time.
The coroner took the body but found no evidence of a crime.
Thereafter it seemed strange to me to glance out at the spot
where “Crazy Mary” used to be but nowadays was not.
This was where “Crazy Mary” spent the last of all her time,
but there was not a single rose to call her fate to mind.

Then, in a dream, she appeared to me and I was all undone;
Upon her head was a crown of stars and her clothes shone like the Sun.