The Post Office
Standing in the endless line at my neighborhood post office,
I note the filthy floor,
And the candy wrappers, and nip bottles, and wads of used Kleenex,
And the weary clerks,
And the racks against the wall, meant to hold packing boxes and manila envelopes,
But empty, always empty,
Except for one padded envelope with hearts on it, for Valentine’s Day—
Only it’s August.
I had high hopes! Surely the post-office situation had improved in the years I was away,
Because, you know,
How could it get worse?
This particular post office is not the one in my old neighborhood,
But the aesthetic—mid-century state mental hospital—is the same.
New York is ever-changing, you might as well get used to it, everyone says.
And some changes are good!
Like, I resent being grateful to Andrew Cuomo for anything,
But I am in awe of Moynihan Train Hall, its soaring interiors flooded with buttery light—
A wonderland, especially after passing through
The hellscape of Penn Station.
And the Second Avenue subway, so airy and shiny I am momentarily, dizzily, disoriented.
Have I landed in some super-tidy land—maybe Japan, or Finland?
But that’s not the case at the post office, still and forever foul and forlorn.
Here’s a thought:
Let me look at the post office as a soothing reminder that some things never change.
Some things really are eternal.
Here, in the same old cesspool I left behind,
I am home again.
Bikes
The bikes took over the city streets during COVID,
When New Yorkers discovered that everything could be delivered,
Including a cup of coffee from Starbucks, for some reason.
And people saw the delivery guys, who at least had some excuse
For heedless and high-speed bike riding—their livelihood depended on it!—
And decided to imitate them.
I didn’t live in New York then.
What a shock to return, and to find myself
Almost murdered every day, in the bike free-for-all,
Where red lights and one-way streets and bike lanes are as nothing—
Just a joke to be laughed at, ha ha ha!
And by bikes, I mean the whole array:
The bikes,
The turbocharged bikes,
The motorized scooters,
The things that look like mopeds only smaller,
And some other kinds of locomotive things I don’t even know the names for.
Standing at the curb, I whip my head from side to side,
Checking for oncoming bikes—
Left, right, left, right—
I look like I’m watching a ping-pong tournament.
I step into the street gingerly, as if I’m dipping a toe into the cold ocean,
But somehow one of them appears anyway, grazing me—
Motherfucker!
And now, lately, the bikes are on the sidewalk, too,
So that just stepping out the door of my building is like
Trying to merge onto the L.A. freeway, on foot.
And if you’ve managed to make it into the sidewalk traffic,
You must not pause, unless you want the bikes to mow you down,
For we pedestrians are nothing but human slalom poles to them—
They slow down for no one!
Not the dads with their kids on the way to day care,
Not the very old people clutching their canes or their caregivers,
Praying that they didn’t survive the Depression,
The war, cancer, only to end their days
Struck down by a scooter.
Pot
Whoa, the pungent miasma—eau de marijuana!
When I left the city, people still had to skulk in shadowy doorways
To smoke pot in public.
Hard to believe now,
When pot is not only legal,
It’s compulsory.
Hard to believe, but also still just strange to me—
It’s like we’re all living in a Wesleyan dorm,
Two minutes after Parents’ Weekend ends,
When the moms and dads have waved out the windows
Of their Subarus, “Goodbye, Jacob! We love you, Gracie!”
And the beloved children, free at last, can finally light up.
Here in the little park at the end of my block, every day is Pot Day:
Two boys and a girl, sweet-faced high schoolers,
On their way to homeroom, sit on a bench playing Uno.
They swig from big energy drinks the color of antifreeze
And take deep drags of fat doobies,
Girding themselves for another day of boring, boring
Chemistry equations and trigonometric functions.
Spiffy young professionals on their weed breaks come mid-morning,
And mid-afternoon brings dusty construction workers after their shifts.
And today, my goodness, there’s a jolly little trio
Of young men in hospital scrubs, standing around smoking away,
On their break from Mount Sinai West.
No judgment, but is everyone high all the time now?
I will practice what the Buddhists call mudita—taking joy in the joy of others.
Smoke on, friends! Have a blast!
O.K., I am a little worried about the three guys in scrubs,
Who look too young to be doctors, but I’m kind of old now,
And most doctors look like Doogie Howser to me, anyway.
I ask the universe to please let them not be my doctor
When I have to go to the emergency room after being run over by a bike.
♦
