My neighbor waited across the slick streets
and bathed under marquee lights.
A black cab churned up chunks of snow.
She knew I was looking,
every black-hosed bend slow and taut.
The midnight crowd let out.
I dodged a grandfather, a crying sister,
a solitary child.
A truck idled in the back alley
and I drove all kinds of reckless through my mother’s old neighborhood—
Sampson and Schley,
McKinley and Grand.
I found my neighbor at the Tameron Park table,
a hot, greasy dinner prepared in foil.
I sat with her and saw a dusty family
trumpet down the street. A young couple rode in a carriage
while grandmothers and uncles trudged along,
bottles in their hands and children back in their beds.
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