She was sitting on the steps outside the church, elbows resting on her knees. Young, but tired looking. Pretty. "Do you want some dinner?" She asked kindly. "I think they're still serving." Weird question. Dinner? No. I'd not eaten, but I would, soon. I was at the church to catch a panel on single payer health care. I wasn't quite sure where the church was, but this was the general area, and I'd found a church. I walked up the steps, tried the door. Locked. An older woman, toothless and weathered, looked up at me. "That's not the door," she said. "Go past the stairs, to your right. They're still serving." I walked into a soup kitchen. There was no panel inside, just a dozen or so tired, middle-aged people, eating dinner or talking quietly. I sought out one of the volunteers, a priest. "You're looking for 1700 Sherman." I guess I was. Outside, the older woman was standing with a man who introduced himself as her husband. He was younger than she was, long dark hair and the sort of intensely pale blue eyes that leave you unsettled if you hold gaze for too long. I told them I was in town for the convention, a reporter. "My wife's clothes were stolen," he replied sadly. "I found this in a dumpster," -- he gestured to her purple blouse -- "and cut the sleeves off. A friend gave us the jeans. They were jeans he'd just gotten." I asked if I could tape them, but they said no. I could talk to them though. His wife did most of the talking. I asked about the convention. "Many of the people over there, they'd say they were there for you," I told her. "We can't go there. You've got to stay away from downtown," she said. "There are good cops and there are bad cops out now. The good ones, we know them. But the bad ones, if you've got a bag, they'll take it away. Throw it away. I tell the people I know, if you're homeless, stay out of downtown. Go to Aurora or Lakewood. But not Downtown." "We're not making any trouble," said her husband. "We've got enough trouble. We're not protesting. We don't have signs. We don't want to get tazed or maced. It's hard enough. All we've got in these bags are essentials, we can't lose them." Two miles down, in the Pepsi Center, the word "poverty" will be uttered hundreds of times. Delegates and reporters and operatives and press folks will all converge for free dinners and panels on social justice. But this week, no one will see the poor unless they're lost.
