Not the Big City

It’s a small, calm town,

leafy even in autumn

with native evergreens.

No-one living here

can walk down the street

without meeting neighbours

or old friends from school.

Today I watch 
a quietly beautiful girl 

sit with her laptop 

in a sunny café, safely.

A second poem for Quadrille–9: Green at dVerse. 

My first described a young girl sitting alone in an internet café, unconscious of her own graceful beauty. Had I been an artist, I'd have wanted to paint her; but my art is with words, so I made a poem. I became startled and then horrified as reader after reader commented that she seemed vulnerable and ought to be more careful about sitting there alone and/or using the internet. 'She must beware,' they said. What – in the middle of the day, in a public place, doing nothing out of the ordinary? (I did mention that her top had slipped off one shoulder, but that's not an unusual look in contemporary fashion, at least in our warm climate here.) Can so many of my readers really be so prurient? Or is it that they live in cities where such dangers are commonplace? Perhaps the title I gave that poem was open to misinterpretation? Anyway, I was moved to write another poem, giving my subject more context.