What I Saw on my Walk Last Night

What I Saw on my Walk Last Night

I stepped outside and saw someone in front of the halfway house jiggy dancing

and down the street a league of African nations play soccer on an empty lot,

with overturned trashcans and PCV tubing for makeshift goals.

After passing them, even from a block away I can still hear them cheer and roar, Score!

I walk past Margate Field House where a man wearing a bra on the outside of his shirt sits with his shopping cart. He also sports a fabulous hat, we nod at each other.

Next I meet a father walking with his son on a bicycle. He rides a bit crooked, tipping back and forth between the training wheels.

Then there is a family of women, a grandma, mom and a smattering of children. Grandma wears a white linen veil and a sari of white. If I were to guess I’d day they were from Eritrea. St. Thomas of Canterbury Catholic Church hosts Eritrean Coptic services. The old woman stops and speaks to me, what looks to be a burnt match clutched between her teeth. I smile and steeple my hands as if in prayer. She folds her wrinkled hands over mine and continues to say something. Her daughter says she is happy. I know, so am I. The little girl wants to tell me her name and when I bend down she touches my hair.

That’s it, we part.

But not before I pass a young couple on a park bench, her head in his lap. He gazes down at her, their eyes meeting.

And that is what I saw on my walk last night.

 from the archives of Calumet 412