A friend of mine moved from an apartment we both lived in – but consecutively –
To her mother’s home in the suburbs
While awaiting one of a sequence of
Rescheduled surgeries.

She fell
Getting off of a bus on Grand Avenue
With its warped surface that scuffs loafers
And trips worn out sneakers
With equal disregard.

Grand Avenue has some old beauties, but was
Mainly the dividing line between which side of downtown had money and which side was just
Waiting to go to the East side.

As I wait for a bus,
An older lady sits cross-legged on the pavement. In the 50s, Grand Aenue’s heyday, she would have worn a dress and fretted into
A damp handkerchief.

Carrying my market bag, I, too, if I had been walking down Grand Avenue in the ’50s, would have resembled a McCalls dress pattern cover, if slightly wilted by June mimicking July.

Grand Avenue’s glamour is faded and a shirtless man whose tattoos settle into the creases of his aged flesh spits on the other side of the street

Another poet, maybe Ginsberg, would give prayers the Grand Avenue’s lost.

I get on my bus, rebuking myself for paying another fare, forgetting I still
Had time on my transfer.