Dawn's Early Light

This morning a woman was sitting on my garden stairs as I walked by with my dogs. She was all excited to meet them. She had a tattoo on her cheek, script writing in pink and blue around her right eye, and a huge green bruise on her forehead the size of an orange. Are you okay? I asked. Thanks I'm fine. I mentioned her bruise and she said she fell roller skating. "Oh I love roller skating," I said. "I was drunk," she said. Oh. I had my doubts. Then she reminded me that she sees me all the time and is my neighbor around the corner.

She had been doing something, assembling something moments before we saw her and I knew it was preparing drugs for injection. We said goodbye and when I was inside I said to my husband I will go check on her in a few minutes. I did and she was nodding off. I phoned dispatch. Later I received notification from the RI Dept of Health of an escalation of overdoses in our city.