Lost Street
by Odin Roark

Why must there be the “old days,”
where running into anyone familiar is nowhere,
while humid summer heat makes it harder to find the past?

As I search…

Gone are the apartments houses of yesterday,
the stores, office buildings…everything so unfamiliar now,
even the trees in the park I remember so small compared to now,
and the birds so quiet,
as if in hiding.

Signs shows every bus re-routed.
Removed are the vegetable and fruit stands.
Fewer are the bargain haircuts.

Where is the school yard with its graffiti covered fence
and smog covered windows where Miss Burns
always stayed late to grade papers?

“Damn it. Where is my street?”

Maybe I should retrace my footsteps,
give the neighborhood another look,
find someone who might show me the way,
and maybe a place to lay down for a long sleep,
since my ticket was only one-way
wherever I came from at dawn.