1573

You want me to get out
and help?

The 8's
stuck between an SUV
and a squad car.

Waving,
still waving,
still waving.

He comes around
and flips the SUV
's sideview mirror back.

We squeak
through.

What kind of
cop parks
like that, on
the no parking
side of a one
way street, off
a snowbank.

The driver doesn't
seem to mind.

Had to sit for
fifteen minutes
behind a school
bus the other

Our ad hoc traffic
guard resumes
his seat.

Next stop Lewis
Warsh gets on.
I tug his sleeve
as he walks past.

It's been months.

He's going to Africa,
A little country called
Lesotho. The Switzerland
of Africa, I say.

He looks good.
As usual he is in love.

I half want to tell him
to send his novels
to the New York Review
to be reprinted.

Instead, I hop off
at Astor Place,
having complained mildly
about my job,

and go pick up
some gratis contacts
for M., taking pictures
of the sun finding out
how good it feels
on the sides of
Gramercy, then Gracie,

and then I'm in
the doctor's office,
admiring the smoke
Con Ed uses to light
up the dusk.

Please excuse Jordan
from finding a way
to reprise the image
at the beginning
of this poem;
being born once
was plenty, thanks.