Melpomene In Manhattan

As she walked she would look back over her shoulder and trip upon sidewalk cracks or bump into people to whom she would apologize profusely, her head still turned. One could hear her murmur to herself tearfully, as though filled with a yearning to recover what she was leaving behind as if she would preserve it or do for it what she had neglected out of ignorance or oversight or from sheer meanness and spite or simple helplessness to do better, her voice beginning to keen as she tripped or steered blindly into the gutter