SurVision Magazine
An international online magazine
that publishes Surrealist poetry in English.
Issue Fourteen
SHARON ROSEMAN
They come at me
They come at me, sidewalks so uneven, so broken up, I can't look at anything, not even a tree in blossom, not even a neighbor waving from across the street, not even whether the bus is coming, not even if I'm going to get splashed. I can't look at a thing except the ground for fear of tripping, dropping, falling, flailing about, grabbing onto a passing stranger, wrenching my shoulder, breaking my wrist, or getting all muddy and feeling foolish. When I come to the traffic lights, the walk signal eventually lights up but I don't catch the number of seconds that begins the count-down because I'm head down, moving. Pedestrians are expected to pick up their pace and I almost trip when I bang into my speech bubble retort: "Dear city, your inattention to those of us who might require more time to cross is impeccable." When the winter storm hits hard the next day, I can't reach the walk signal button because of the snow, and I can't figure out where to wait. I'll likely have to walk partly in defiance of the red hand signal that enjoys putting it to those of us who need to summon the blinking white chalk outline. I'll definitely get splattered with a good hit of road salt but the main thing for safety in this scenario is to make eye contact with drivers, if they'll have me.
Sharon Roseman is from St. John's, Canada. Her poetry and micro fiction can be found in Poetica Magazine, CuiZine, Found Polaroids, and The Ekphrastic Review, and is forthcoming in The Memory Palace ekphrastic anthology.
