A Treadmill
It can’t stop journeying
with me on it
taking me toward a destination
I'm not sure I want to reach
as this freakin’ treadmill slips
its rubber pad
into a steel mouth
or maybe the steel lips
pull it in,
steal the flat mat’s material
in a bizarre mechanical greediness
that propels this motion
I’m not sure I desire
or can even survive
since the momentum is movement
indifferent to the dire limitations
of my inadequate legs
and the feeble motion
of my weak hip joints
that go along with this
ridged horizontal roller coaster
because l don’t think I know
how the dickens—
in fact, I’m sure I don’t know
how the hell to halt—switch off
this jerk of a machine
that has a will like the cosmos
to zip me
through a shifting universe
on a chancy voyage
that will never ever
ever come to an end
Midtown Dilemma
Those loud percussive booms.
Are they coming from an engine in distress?
A van about to explode?
A planted bomb ready to shock
East 59th Street with a detonation
to blast sleek glass skyscrapers
and shake the neon-lit fronts of eateries?
My stride becomes hesitant,
then stops altogether.
I turn to step away from
the direction the noise issues from
in bombastic, brash barks.
But how will I look
if I simply desert the scene?
I'm a scaredy-cat if I leave
but I’m a coward if I stay—
when that stance is not my desire—
only because I don’t want others
to spot me scurrying away.
In either case, I’m giving my power
to something or someone else.
Even after the exotic luxury car
that apparently was making the racket
overcomes its mechanical problems
and speeds off into the night.
I can’t erase my reaction to
unseen, half-imagined danger
nor my response to presumed
judgements of strangers.
l’m stuck with what I can’t escape:
a negative verdict about myself.