At 85 I saw my youngest grandchild at seven
In her Princess Leia dress, barefoot, outside.
The Christmas tree
Pushed through the window,
Star Wars again,
A space journey for her and my sixteen others.
At 2:54 on the Hudson Line the river
Glistening, not yet frozen, returned me
With the excitement of memory
To GRAND CENTRAL STATION, “Crossroads of a thousand lives,”
Didn’t the radio of the early 1940s announce?
One more look at the electric trains,
But the door shut on New Year’s Day.
At the bottom of the escalator,
Crowds at the few eateries open.
One tall man in a white shirt reaches into a barrel,
Fingers from the corner of a cardboard a mouthful.
At the next barrel, a dark man in dark clothes
Stores a plastic box for later.
Closer to my fourth floor apartment
In the locked entrance to the Chase Bank,
On Broadway,
On the floor,
A man, safe and warm, sleeps.
This article appears in February 2015.
