A Sunday Walk Along Fifth Avenue

 A Sunday Walk on  Fifth Avenue

Written by

David Steven Simon

I’m on a 22-block

winter walk

moving with childhood velocity

along Fifth Avenue.

The sky is Tiffany blue

which makes everyone feel

as prosperous as a happy ending.

My heart is that

red balloon

escaping like a convict

above the Strand Books Kiosk

moving to the madcap rhythm

of the Red Maple Leaf rag

I’m swallowed by

the fanny pack of tourist wolves

the sneaker hoofed stampede

the merry prankster dogs

and the unicorn girl in her multicolored finery

City pilgrims

pray to their phones

led by a sacred calling

as I am caught in the swirling tide of

Puffers and Pashminas. 

A homeless man

soiled as a chimney sweep

sleeps on church steps

dreaming of

his full belly past.

A cardboard of hand-scrawled commandments lay at his charcoal feet

offering hand scrawled instructions 

on how to lead a more purposeful life

I dodge

The hand-holding strollers

and

The hands-pushing strollers

with their acrobatic babies

the Nicotine agers

shed the stogie bench puffer

who exhales his smoke like fast escaping manhole steam.

Central Park trees blush like schoolgirls.

A skinny man escorts his

Viola on wheels

like he’s showing it the door/—

And then… 

there she is.

A friendly-faced woman,

with dusk-blue eyes,

a constellation of silver-threaded hair

and life-etched lines.

The kind of woman you fall in love with

in passing,

through storefront windows,

and faraway tables in the muted confessionals of sad cafes.

Our affair lasts a 

second.

Maybe less. 

And then 

she’s gone

and I am left 

to wonder

how I will live without her.

I return to my walk

pulled by heartache

and that is when the the city speaks  to me and whispers, 

“I got you.”

Heading for the station

people smile at me

So do the dogs.

And that’s when I realize

I am walking on air.