I'm riding on the sidewalk again
and uphill in the hour before
the people in the dell are supposed to be
at and about their various tasks
that may or may not include
checking on the coffee machine and
making sure the punch clock
is still keeping time as well as their watches and
answering phone calls from
the rest of us still stuck on the outside
or with one foot in the door and the other
still in a boot from the last door it kicked in.
And pushing my little horse hard
I am stopped at a crosswalk
where a lampost tried to shake hands
with a brick wall four feet tall,
but was interrupted by an age faced woman
who wanted to keep a bus stop company.
Dismounting and walking the long way
to leave her vigil uninterrupted,
since I was on my way home and
I really don't have to be as on time for bed
as I insisted when I ran out of my job
at the last bell,
she looks straight through my shades and
my sweat and my work soured eyebrows and
cedes a smile
at my efforts to grease her sun ripe morning and
not get hit by logs of cheese buses.
I smiled back and smiled wide
at her amusement,
my inconvenience turned
into a gold star and
I wished for several seconds
upon the pearls in her mouth and
the wealth of time in her eyes
that she could be my mother
before regaining the sidewalk and
the tree shaded way home.
