FOXTROT
written by: Martina Reisz Newberry
This morning, as soon as the sun was up,
I walked into the city past the small
deli/coffee shop where a woman sat
with her coffee and croissant. I went west
on the same concrete and metal paths we
all walk here. Above me, one hundred birds—
crows I think—rose and called out their numbers
to a blue/beige sky. It was the hour when
people who live with dogs walk their dogs past
the man-made wonders of glass and granite,
wires and unnatural light. I thought of
Mother, how at 60 she was a lot
less crazy than she had been when I was
a child. She was a superlative grand-
mother to my children. As they grew up,
she went a little mad again but more
quietly than she had done during my
child years. If you want to see wildflowers
in this city, you must get up early,
forgo breakfast, and, as you stride along,
watch the sidewalk because it is in the
cracked cement that the tough little orphan
daisies and bastard dandelions grow.
This morning, I discovered an alley
that I had never seen before. I don’t
think it has been there all along; it just
appeared for me this morning. The purpose
for it was obvious: it was the door
to a new route, a path to the water-
fall of remembering Mother’s face: blank,
pale, tired, accusing me of time’s passing.
