Walking

I never run into anyone from the old days.
It's summer and I'm alone in the city.
I enter stores, apartment houses, offices
And find nothing remotely familiar.

The trees in the park - were they always so big?
And the birds so hidden, so quiet?
Where is the bus that passed this way?
Where are the greengrocers and hairdressers,

And that schoolhouse with the red fence?
Miss Harding is probably still at her desk,
Sighing as she grades papers late into the night.
The bummer is, I can't find the street.

All I can do is make another tour of the neighbourhood,
Hoping I'll meet someone to show me the way
And a place to sleep, since I've no return ticket
To wherever it is I came from earlier this evening.

From 'That Little Something', Poems by Charles Simic