Let People Cross Through Traffic
Nick Orsini’s poems are my favorite lullaby.
Let people cross through traffic. If chivalry is dead, your hands are paramedics…use them to hold the door at the gym. You’re sweaty. You smell like Subway. You have no business working out. Hold the door anyway.
You avoid bars because you believe with your whole heart in chance encounters at Target…someone can’t carry a chipped book shelf. You help. They check out and trust you enough to walk them to their car. Numbers are exchanged. Love is born over cheap furniture.
Adopt a dog. Take the dog everywhere. It’s the only living thing that depends on you to show it an entire world…parks, cities, highways and shores. Let it dig up sand, swim in pools, flop a tongue on the window…eat your fruits and vegetables.
My mom planted a tree I bought at my elementary school Arbor Day tree sale. It fought winter after winter, putting roots deep into the ground. It grew biceps for branches. A trunk thickened. My mom still takes sheers to that tree…clipping away all life can’t use.
Write something. It can start with, “She makes me feel…” “He makes me feel…” It can be on the back of a food stamp or in a leather-bound journal. I re-read old things in notebooks. There was a poem called Elevator about getting stoned before working charity events. You might not do your best always.
Hi grandma. I’m going to do good for people. I’m going to tire myself out at 4-week long events. I’m going to read words the way you read newspaper stories out loud.
Hi grandpa. Yes, I’m working. It’s not a job like most jobs…but I’m earning my keep. It isn’t much, but one day it will be more. I’ll buy that whole nursing staff coffee. I’ll give them some newer movies.
Hi Lauren. I’m naming you by name this time. I told you back in November…I screwed up when we were kids. I think about it sometimes, when I listen to certain music. Thanks for reading what I do…thanks for defending it to your friends. I’m going to travel lots of miles, and when it’s over, I’ll learn to love someone. I’ll build them up.
