Pandemic pleasures

Sam Friedman
he/him
During the pandemic

Daily, throughout this pandemic,
I have walked the streets
of the town where I live,
streets I neglected during decades
of home to New York,
New York to home,
and then the next day,
home to New York, New York to home.

But now, I greet the neighbors’ cats,
the bamboo across the stream
three blocks away.

Bunnies scamper,
deer peer silent,
poised to bolt,
in pocket parks that pock-mark my town
unseen, un-thought of,
over decades of there and back again.