Moving

It’s me

In the same jeans

Walking the same street

Dragging my feet

Humming a tune

Making eyes at the moon

Soon

I’ll walk a different street

One that smells less like Ramen and mussel shells

And more like coffee

Finely ground

Pressed- French

Upper-class stench, comparatively

But I’ll miss

The hip-hop in the street

Dancing to the beat slowly in circles in my minuscule kitchen

The hum of a drum from the neighbor boy’s band

Hand in hand walking, talking with dogs on leashes made of electrical tape

The Great Escape

Made by Buster daily as he chases the men in black suits walking home from the train

In the rain when the walls cry because they cannot hold the weight of water

Coming at it from both sides

Wailing

A wife

A daughter

In torrents

In streams

In dreams laced with broken fingers, I linger

In summer beneath Gertie’s window

Where gospel music stirs the pot of curried goat

In winter where the burning sage will cling to coats

And the patio that’s always good for a smoke-

A joke between friends and bagels on Saturday mornings

The drop-by’s without warning

When everyone is hungry and shows up just in time for dinner.

The five minute walk to

Italy

Ethiopia

India

Thailand

China

Mexico

Cuba

France

Banking on the chance that perhaps you need no reservation on a Tuesday

Bringing bottles of cheap red wine

Foot tapping, keeping time with the older gentleman on the clarinet

The Girl From Ipanema

On the Street Where You Live

What I would give to play a song or two on a Tuesday night with nothing but a tip jar

And a light

On the night stand

Shining clearly on the music I hadn’t needed to read for decades

Before arcades

And parades

And other sorts of escapades took precedence

Over the decadence

The reverence

The plain, good sense of rhythm and meter

It’s me

In the same jeans

Walking the same street

Dragging my feet

Humming a tune

Making eyes at the moon

Soon

I’ll walk

a different

street.