Millennial Pedestrian
December 27th, 2005Save as PDF
Millennial Pedestrian
Early in the century’s first morning
we are its first pedestrians. Our eyes
meet quickly in a crease of air.
He’s snappy, with a nice warm topcoat on,
hat and polished shoes, but carrying
a jumble of things, a section of the Times
jammed under one arm. He seems
unsure of where he’s headed
or even why he’s outdoors.
Lap dogs leashing down the curb
in search of morsels from the bagel shop
tug their owners with more purpose
than we show, wanly walking off our New
Year’s headaches. I slip inside his topcoat,
underneath his hat, and join him in his head.
The Times today is big and thick
just like the century ahead.
The headline reads, “1/1/00.”
He left home without reading much of it.
The 21st Century frightens him a bit –
it is the blue screen on his desk.
He can’t remember now the first day he logged
on but he remembers when
his father traded in the prewar Packard
for a ‘49 Pontiac with Hydra-Matic,
and the family and some neighbors
climbed in for a spin in the warm
July evening. That day, he thinks,
now that was the millennium.
He remembers the cold night his daughter was born
and she was not a Catherine
though that was the name they’d chosen
months before
and the morning his first wife asked for a divorce
while his eyes sank deep into the swirling pattern
of the oriental rug before him
and he wonders
what he could have done
in the 20th century to be a better man in it.
I leave him in his skin, turn to see him go.
He almost is transparent, seen from here
with low bright sun behind him.
In thin January wind
last night’s confetti blows by us both.
