Stop Sign

It will happen again.
When who can say?
When I am in transit on the stairs
When something is lost and cannot be found
When the workload is heavy
Or anger is threatening
Or the flowers at my feet
Have my full attention
Or the swings that hold the screaming children
Are all taken
Or a lone plastic shovel lying in the sandbox
Cries out for the neglect of it to be ended

It will happen the way it always happens
When I am engrossed with the paper in my hand
And the things of the day have fallen away

And when it happens
The streets will be alive with the current so long missing
And I will walk them remembering back to

Old Miss Jenkins in room 7B3 who set rags and paper
Ablaze in the public bathroom
So the firemen would come with their hooks and ladders
And rescue her from the unending loneliness of days

January 2004