by Sharon Lynn Griffiths
As a poet, Iíve always wondered
what it would be like
if every office, every store,
every apartment in this massive,
wondrous, concrete hive
that is New York,
suddenly dumped all of its people
onto the street at the same time.
Today (lucky me) I found out.
I learned some lessons quickly.
walking is better than standing still.
Sitting is even better than walking.
Sitting still while others are moving
is interesting, to say the least.
Especially when they are moving aimlessly,
restlessly, cluelessly,
turning in slow circles, a human stew
being stirred by an unseen chef,
looking up or scanning the non-existent horizon.
To push beyond disaster takes planning.
In this city, to plan on anything is impossible.
Overheard on the street:
"This is like a really bad street fair."
"Excuse me, what are you standing in line for?"
"We know who did this, ya know what I'm sayiní?"
While the hardest cases, strewn at random
on the ground around Port Authority,
don't even know thereís anything wrong.
Today, we have permission
to talk to our neighbor,
share bottled water, flaky cell-phones, directions,
war stories, candy bars, commiserations.
Permission to give a standing ovation
to the lady bus driver
who rode up on sidewalks, cut off truckdrivers,
and air-conditioned, single-passenger luxury cars
to get her sweaty, working-class people
to the arterial main-line home.
We applauded her at every aggressive merge,
every intersectional triumph,
every light-pole and bumper avoided.
A great roar went up
when we finally saw the Jersey sun
lowering through the eerie, red-lit tunnel.
Looking on the bright side, keeping paranoia down,
let's just say it was only human error.
Late-night TV's lousy anyway.
Perhaps we'll even see the goddamn stars tonight.
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