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| THE CROSS-TOWN by Eileen Valentino Flaxman The Cross-Town makes its way in fits and starts, day in and day out, from the east side to the west and the doors hiss and the brakes screech and people get on and off, one corner after another, until it’s time to turn back around, and this is where he queues up, same time each day, only this day the wind’s icy intention threatens to steal his hat and he feels a warm blast as he boards but soon it suffocates, and off comes his hat as he looks overhead and reads the same ads he read yesterday and thinks like every day that he should buy a copy of the Times because no one talks or makes eye contact as mass transit once again picks up the masses to deliver them right back where they started. But this day he catches his reflection in the window and no longer recognizes the man who once stood out in a crowd and would change the world, and it occurs to him this day that he is just like everyone else around him, because his life is not turning out the way he had planned. Sometimes there is a day that goes unnoticed slips through the fingers for I have better things to do than stop to catch the light in my mother’s hair, or watch her housedress sway as she works in the kitchen, its rhythm a kind of silent music sometimes there is a day that claims a place all its own and lodges permanently in the mind, a keepsake to take out and hold in the hand, turn over and examine from all sides how you looked at me that last time then there are days I look past the face in the mirror and don’t meet the eyes staring out of me don’t recognize who I am or what I want as the crush of days swirls and rushes past but sometimes there is a day that rises brilliant and clear and stands alone and I stand at its center and that is enough That Summer Night in Central Park We wait in line for broiled chicken, stand so close our shoulders touch, then make our way to a spot on the grass near the stage to spread our blanket. We can’t keep our hands to ourselves for love is new, we are new, and today is all about us. We devour our meal and lick each other’s fingers and drink chilled wine from plastic cups. The sunlight dims on cue, floodlights rise, and even Shakespeare seems new, his comedy sharper, his love scenes our own story told over and over. Lust simmers but is patient, for the long night stretches before us and belongs to us. We see stories in one another’s eyes and we are hungry to hear those stories and tell those stories and we will sit face to face and there will be joy in the telling. This promise of later sits like a mint on the tongue to be slowly savored. We lean back and settle into each other’s arms, content, as the backdrop of this evening serenades us with music only we can hear. Ode to the Rain and Lots of It Rain pours all night long and throughout the day and pummels the roof, splatters the windows, puddles the walkways and makes me very happy. Don’t I miss the sun, you ask? Not a whit. Let it take a day off and well deserved. Good excuse to stay inside and indulge. Snacks and solitaire, novels or Netflix, letters to answer or why not write one to the editor and have my say. Raindrops flicker on their way from the sky to the striped awning, porch swing, seedbed, sidewalk, doggie tongue, and jet off car wheels that speed by with a whoosh and a waterfall, or ricochet off red rain coats and Kitty Cat umbrellas that dot the landscape with the only color in sight, like flowers that uprooted themselves to take a splishy-splashy walk in the rain. Sunny skies are for extroverts. Soggy days with overcast skies keep me safely indoors, enjoying my own company, which can be the best company there is. About the Author: .jpg) Eileen Valentino Flaxman loves the written word – in all of its forms. She wrote her first letter, when she was 7 years old, to the President of Metro Goldwyn Meyer, asking for more kid-friendly movies (he wrote her back). She has since had hundreds of letters to the editor published in a number of newspapers. She donates her time to tutor high school seniors with their college admission essays and her memoir — Pieces of Glass: Growing Up Catholic in the Fifties — can be foundon Amazon. Her first collection of poetry – I Have Something To Say About Love – was published in her youth and recently Eileen has written a poem for each of the 136 chapters of the classic novel, Moby-Dick.They can be seen on her website Call Me Ishmael’s Apprentice. https://evflax.wixsite.com/ishmaelsapprentice. |