Where to Find Poetry in Difficult Times, City Edition
It’s in the sound of laughter coming from the city maintenance truck,
where two gruff men howl with delight
over what they are watching on a phone.
It’s the woman in her slippers
smoking a cigarette
throwing a giant stuffed ice cream cone
to her black and white dog
over and over again.
It’s in the woman in her sari and Hokas
circling the park.
It’s in waiting for the train rumbling by
full of gravel
festooned with colorful graffiti
passing by like an art exhibit.
It’s in the season’s first cool day,
with diffuse light and dry leaves floating to the ground.
It’s in lighting a candle during the day.
It’s in giving yourself permission to walk to the store
for a York peppermint patty
and nothing else.
It’s in the detritus of the homeless camping nearby,
telling a story of things
abandoned by people abandoned.
There is poetry in that, a desperate kind of poetry.
It’s in watching the city worker come and paint
over the graffiti that says
Sorry, we cannot just disappear.
It’s in the crowd of nighttime roller skaters,
wearing glow sticks and lights,
tutus and leather jackets,
pause at the corner as it starts to sprinkle,
to decide which direction to proceed.
It’s in a text to a friend,
looking for poetry also,
and finding it
in a loud talker from California sitting in a cafe
who needs to learn the quiet ways of the midwest.