| Hailing a Cab
The City dreams me up
nothing fancy just a kid
out late on the East Side curb
by our old broken home
Down Summer's Second Avenue
headlights slide at me in a herd
and my brightened heart
beats with the great
need of a cab
Riding the head of that need
I feel you Father hacking
through the moonlight blocks between us
the roof-lit Checker cruise
of yourself seeming to wheel
its black and yellow way
toward my child's hailing eyes
But no you avoid me
as if I were an accident
or because you could tell
just by my looks that you
wouldn't dare take a fare to
where I would want you to go
Having passed me up you stop
half-a-block away and I watch you
inside the taxi's lit interior
as you scatch down
something in your log that
leads me on into believing
that you may have seen me
reflected in your mirror's rear-view
I wave again and wait
Years and years for you to back up
growing as I wait into a man
rooted in the child's night
of that endless corner
still able to feel in my sleep
the blood red points
Of your fading tail-lights
as you drive them deeper
and deeper into my heart
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