I walk these streets
Where my grandfather walked
From a town on the other side of the state
I walk these streets
Where my father walked
From a town on the other side of the country
And sometimes I can hear my grandfather shouting
Saying, "Do you think this concrete ever gets softer?"
And my father -- his son in law -- turns around
And even though the two of them never met
He replies
No I don't.

“Oh, my husband has been ill. He just got out of the hospital.”

An unneeded apology for the elderly man's labored pace

I didn't but I should have told the elderly woman that I was in no hurry to collect their newspaper subscription.

I stood patiently

As 40 years passed

And somehow I remembered that old man and old woman in an apartment complex set back in the
desert

Reading about the fall of Saigon, the Mayaguez, Ford to New York: Drop Dead

Fading away

Their names no longer spoken

Like Saigon, Mayaguez, Ford

Only New York persevering

In the same place maybe where

I spot a flicker and a shadow

A young boy and young girl holding hands

Twenty-five by eight on the muddy water
She steps from rocking wood
to solid land
Looking forward to dry dirt, not mud and water
on her gingham dress
Five thousand square feet off
W. Evergreen, the Weedstreet District
"Can you believe all these people," he says.
"I thought they say no one has money."
And Rod Stewart replies, "Billy left his home with a dollar in his pocket..."
And then outside
She looks up in the sky and marvels:
"Hey, the Sears Tower is still there."

Meagan, Quidnishia, and Pam marched in
Dressed to the nines
(Unlike the other 5-daze)
Amens traded for
"How may I help you today?"

America started working out
Hit the gym every other day
Jogged on the others
Ended up losing 50 nuclear bombs

Russia said, "You're looking good
How do you do it?
I keep trying and trying
And the weight stays."

Iran patted its paunch and frowned,
"You and me both."

At the 80s dance party
I saw the English teacher
Who gave me an F- for
The Emily Dickinson test

Dancing with his eyes shut
Flailing his arms hard enough
To bruise someone
To a song that I hated when it first came out in 1985

But now I liked it
And so I started dancing
Just by myself like the teacher

And if Emily had asked if she could have
Danced with me
I would have thought

Hey, she asked me
But she didn't ask him

Through the plate-glass window
Of the Fire Bowl Cafe
I see three women in royal-blue scrubs
Triangulated on the parking lot

One holds a *** of yellow flowers
Thankful
Appreciated
Smiling like I haven't seen anyone smile all day that day
(Not even in the movie I just saw)

They distriangulate
And I watch the appreciated one
Put her *** of flowers on the asphalt next to her SUV
I wait for her to open the back door and put them in
But she doesn't
She just drives away

And leaves them there
Yellow and blue
Becoming yellow and black
As I wait for her to return
As I wait for a stranger to stop and steal them
Finally I get up
And leave