AT TWENTY I VISIT A CHILDHOOD NEIGHBORHOOD

STEVE NICKMAN

In Verdi Square
on the Upper West Side of Manhattan
old men arrive alone around midday
in late September when there’s sun, carrying
Forverts, the Yiddish daily “Forward”.
Each makes his way through the cooing
crowd of pigeons to a bench
on the pavement of hexagonal gray tiles.
nod to an acquaintance, says a word
or two. One pious grandfather
wears a broad black hat. An elder
moves slowly with his brass-handled cane,
greets another, tieless in a two-piece suit.
They sit, survey the square, read their papers.
One brings bread in a paper bag,
distributes crumbs to the docile birds,
heads moving back and forth.
I sit for an hour watching
the shared quiet. When the air cools
they rise, each in his own time,
each with his private brand of pride,
cross at the light, walk down Amsterdam
or descend the steps to the 72nd Street
subway stop, leaving behind
their singular collective holiness.
I breathe the lingering blessing
of all their hard compromises
like a scent of Armagnac distilled
from decades of ordinary deeds.

Steve Nickman lives in Brookline, Massachusetts and takes part in Poemworks: The Workshop for Publishing Poets. He is a psychiatrist and works mainly with kids, teenagers and young adults. He has a strong interest in the experiences and dilemmas of adoptees and their families, and is working on a book about therapy, The Wound and the Spark. Steve's poetry is forthcoming or has recently appeared in Pleiades, Nimrod, Summerset Review, Tar River Review, Tule Review, and JuxtaProse.