On a new Philadelphia city street, how delicious
that first stroll; I chide myself the fourth time
I don’t much want to go.
Just now my walk goes onto the South Street Bridge, over
the Schuylkill river—frozen in parts—toward the hospital.
The cold months make simple things treacherous.
What is it in me that allows me to forget
how much can change in an hour?
At the intersection one person crossed this morning, another
stands this evening. If I look in the eyes I pass, will I not find
a certain celebration? A feast laid out with inordinate care.
Once this leaf waved, now it is entirely spread with an icy glaze. As I run
my hand over the smooth cold purple—
a decorative, edible lettuce.—I am filled with regret.
Of all the things I missed in the misplaced belief
this walk is always the same.
Hannah Kern is a writer and geriatric nurse practitioner from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She lives in a fourth floor walk up with her husband and a lovely view of the skyline
A Walk in Philadelphia is a post from: Straylight Literary Magazine