I don’t know if you were looking

poetry by Manuel Erickson

I don’t know if you were looking:

You’d put me in a carriage

and pushed it to St. Clair and Oakwood

Did you see me look up

at the lady wearing a beret

in the bright red-green-white Sweet Caporal ad

painted on the drugstore’s brick wall?

She sparkled in the sun and smiled

I giggled

I thought she was you

People appeared. They

leaned under the carriage hood, cooing

I smelled their smoke and heard your voice

Street cars clanged their bells at car drivers

I jiggled as you pushed the carriage

over cracks in the sidewalk

I felt warm and wet and it took a long time

to get home