Turning The Corner

They waited for me.

I missed last year's game

and was delighted to see

it's even better then I remembered.

Turning the corner on Fifth Avenue and 55^th, I smiled.

There was a number M20 bus, unable to clear that corner

because a large furniture truck was trapped at the crosswalk,

because foot traffic blocked its path, because… You get it?

The only discordant note was the lack of horns.

Every year past, on any major cross city street,

you could put money on a post modern ensemble

creating a cacophony of monumentally outraged drivers.

It was incumbent upon me to allow this transgression.

This extraordinary reticence to bellow

at the fates and every other driver.

I accepted the brief lull as a grand welcome to a returning vet.

This is my town.

A place I had hated for 25 years,

But now accept as a neurotic teenager

hell bent on being "king of the hill".

As a senior member, I rejoiced in the warning

offered by the pedestrian I had not run-over 

when he stood, as an obstacle, between me and

my turning that corner: he would “sue my ass”.