Walking Uptown Minus Your Next Dose of Sinemet
Your legs give out…and then Manhattan grows.
The blocks get longer…stretch ahead unbroken…
You limp and know that all the city knows –
Strangers stare…and pass…their thoughts unspoken.
The sun burns fierce: a blow torch overhead.
You’d like to pop a pill so you’d increase
Your pace, and smiling, bop along. Instead
You’re New York’s sluggish, slowpoke centerpiece.
The pavement undulates in all this heat.
Discarded gum oozes like creamy pus.
A sidewalk crack trips up your shuffling feet –
You stumble left…and get hit by a bus.
It’s just a tap…you slightly wrench your knee…
And realize…you’re still alive…and………free.
– Bruce Ballard
