72nd street again,
and it feels cool beneath my bare
feet, but I don’t know
what 72nd street means.
72 streets over? To the left
or to the right, or maybe
if you started at street number 100
and went back 28 streets,
you’d be with me
and the coolness beneath
this bare feat.
And I guess I’m lost
because I don’t even know where
72nd street is except
that it’s where I am right now
at this very exact moment, and 72
seems like such a big number
like maybe I’m supposed to do
something here, but I don’t know what
so I keep walking and try not
to cut my feet on anything
sharp.
I go in a square.
Someone once told me it was
a block, but it really isn’t because
it’s a square when you just keep turning
right and I guess I’m back at 72nd street
because that’s what the sign says
and it has not gotten any warmer
and I have not cut my feet.
And I do not look up
because someone once told me
a rhyme about stepping on cracks
and breaking my mother’s back,
so I try hard not to step
on any cracks, and I tiptoe my way
beside 72nd street, and I
am doing well.
A man comes from the other
side of 72nd street. Maybe he came
from 73rd or 71st, and I wonder
why the numbers go so high,
or maybe I am reading them wrong,
but I do not look up, and
We crash. I fall.
72nd street again, and
I am lost, and I have fallen
on five cracks because I
did not look up, so I figure
my mother is in a lot of pain and
I tell her I am sorry.