Dizzy

Zigging, mid-

block, he’s off:

on a torn-up, trafficked slab of Second Avenue—

his cane sweeping

over

broken asphalt,

like a sapper or

an open skiff on back-splashing seas. For a few

seconds it’s

unclear

if he gets

the risk,

as yellow cabs swoop down and flock at the light.

Then, safe

home

on the other

side. And I

for one cannot take my eyes off him as he pivots,

compassing

north.

We’re never

truly clear.

Now he jams himself at pace between a giant planter

and cross-braced

scaffold

newly set up

at Finnegans.

And wham. The guy is smack on his ass, un-staring up

to heaven,

stunned.

Damn,

I think, what

in hell was that? It’s not like the pain of loving someone

who doesn’t

want

you back

(though that

once ate up years of my life and left me blown like an artery

after too many

bypasses),

nor does it

compare to

frittering away in a job that I’m ill-suited to and which I’ll

probably

lose.

It’s more

as if a hammer

dropped from a sill and laid him out cold. That scaffold

just appeared there

overnight.

And for all

my hard-won bile

I’m not worse off than he is, except in this: I’ve come

to think I

am.

Source: Birds of the Air (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2013)