Diana Rosen

On the Way to the Newspaper Office

Like every workday, I hold my breath to
cross Rossmore at Clinton, an ironic curve
in the road where drivers speed up. No stoplight.
No stop sign. I pass by Lucerne, Gower, idyllic
little streets dotted with 1920s frame cottages
that now fetch six-figures for eight hundred
square feet, "close to everything." The tabby
cat lies curled up in the middle of the tiny patch of
lawn in front of the Parkers' one-story green
and sandstone ranch-house. The quiet draws me
until I realize the stillness is eternal sleep. I want
to change places, leave everything behind, swim
on the orange cloud of dust-to-dust; find myself
dialing Dead Animal Pick-up, swept into another day
selling advertising. Going home, I look over the tiny patch
of lawn in front of the Parkers' one-story green and
sandstone ranch-house, every blade of grass upright,
waltzing in the breeze of twilight. I walk up the few blocks
north to the Times Square cacophony of Melrose
and Vine, the surety of a stoplight, releasing my breath
on the blink of green.

CP

Diana Rosen's work has appeared in the anthologies Kiss Me Goodnight, Those Who Can...Teach, and Bold Ink plus the journals Lucidity, convolvulus, and RATTLE, among others.