Big parking lots make me feel so lonely.<\/p>\n
So far from the street, so far from the sidewalk,
\nso far from the bus stop.<\/p>\n
Tethered to nothing but the errand,
\nI walk to my destination,
\ncertain of the possibility of being apprehended
\nfor breaking an unknown law.<\/p>\n
Quaint 1950s America wouldn’t make me
\nwalk the expanse of a football field
\nto buy milk, bread and razors.<\/p>\n
I remember the walks
\nfrom my grandmother’s house
\nto the Safeway.<\/p>\n
Armed with my grandmother’s
\nshakily written list, with prices in the margin,
\nI soldiered down the street
\nand through a lot
\nbehind a bar
\ncalled the Pyle In.<\/p>\n
On one trip,
\nI walked half a block before I encountered
\na man lying on the sidewalk in my path.
\nHe stirred.<\/p>\n
“Are you ok,” I asked.<\/p>\n
Rubbing his eyes, he said, “What’s ok?” <\/p>\n
We both knew here was nothing else to say.
\nI continued to the store,
\nsaying nothing to my grandmother
\nwhen I returned.<\/p>\n
To this day, I can think of a dozen responses
\nin answer to a child’s “Are you ok?”<\/p>\n
But, the parking lots are so big,
\nwhy would there ever be a need?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Big parking lots make me feel so lonely. So far from the street, so far from the sidewalk, so far from the bus stop. Tethered to nothing but the errand, I walk to my destination, certain of the possibility of being apprehended for breaking an…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40065"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40283,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40065\/revisions\/40283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}