Every day for millennia
the moon has sucked water upstream
to salt these banks,
let it go, sucked again,
in a twice-a-day pulsing
of mud-embroidered tides.
Every weekday for three decades
I have twice trod above this pulsing river.
In the morning, cars puff exhaustion
over this bridge, over these waters.
Solo women await the turning of red lights green,
solo men’s fingers patter rhythms on padded steering wheels,
solo parents twitch while children whine their anger
at going to school.
No smiles.
No glances at the pulsing waters.
Just resignation
at the workday ahead.
In the evening, faces seem blasted.
Drivers’ feet fumble, push pedals forwards
while walkers dodge backwards
at crosswalks besieged.
Cars blow their gases
across drivers and walkers
exhausting
their lives.
Sam Friedman has published hundreds of poems and many books, including Teamster Rank and File; Making the World Anew: Poems of the New Dialectic; and A Precious Residue: Poems that ponder efforts to spark a working class socialism in the 1970s and after.
