lights flashing through the city and polluting the air,
car horns honking and people colliding with your shoulder.
billboards flashing advertisements for the crowds below:
‘get a coke! stop by olive garden! try this phone service!’
and surrounding those screens, posters for the theater.
wicked, lion king, hamilton, and more
go to west 46th street and fight the crowd,
feel the excitement, hear the orchestra, touch the souvenirs,
let even a native new yorker become a tourist for one day
take your seat, admire the view, take some pictures,
listen to the ushers, watch the crowd settle, straighten as the lights dim.
everyone in places--it’s showtime.

I woke up off Broadway.
Not that Broadway.
I made good on my farewell.
She said she would call.
I stumbled home in the morning light.
Hailed the sun as a friendly face.
The *** and ***** eked from my pores.
Leaving their mark on my muddled mind.
Like dirt in the puddle.
Oh how wasted my life has been.
I slept through the day.
Awoke in the early evening glow.
Refreshed and ready to take on the night again.
She didn't call.
She never called.

That day, something got into me.
Approaching the corner of 155th
and Broadway on the Upper West Side,
my friend and I were only a block from home.

Either we'd been on a mission for candy necklaces
or bubble gum cigars, from the place where the guy
was always grumpy, never actually scary,
and the sawdust on the floor, the real cigars
in fancy boxes, were something to wonder about.

Or we had just scored our first fresh sugar canes,
one each, and much taller than either of us.
The kindly Puerto Rican green grocer, proud
of his new shop, hoped we'd try the plantains
too, getting a kick out of our delight
in what he'd always known.

The light was red, and we weren't in a hurry.
I just got curious about this trap door on the side
of the old cast iron signal post,
and decided to see
if it would open... and it did.

Smiling to myself, an uncommon, delicious
sense of mischief lighting me up inside,
I calmly flipped a switch.

Instantly, all four lanes of traffic, heading north
and south on Broadway came to a screeching halt.

The feeling of power was intoxicating.
And unforgettable.

Had I been an older kid, had the policeman
who happened by been less lenient, had anyone, God forbid,
been injured, I could have been in some serious trouble.

Injury never entered my mind, and maybe the officer saw that.
All in all, I got away with the only really naughty thing
I did as a child, and still get to smile.
And remember.