Walking up Government Street

On the other side of the tea shop window,
a woman lifts a small clay cup to her lips,
and steam wreathes her face with incense.

Outside, cherry blossoms
blow in pink tornados around my feet,
swirl the curb and stick
petals on a wet, black dog
leashed to a trashcan.

A yellow bicycle with a basket
and a polished silver bell
leans against a wooden bench.

Today, I want to be the kind of person
who rides a yellow bicycle
with a basket full of bok choy
and fragrant pears. I want
to pedal across the blue bridge, ringing
my polished silver bell at strangers.
I want to whistle tunes
sung by bright-cheeked children
in school playgrounds. I want
to annoy people with my happiness.

Here, on a street floating with spring,
even store windows papered with old news
and the man sleeping below a stone lion
by the Chinatown gate – even they seem hopeful
in this wind of falling flowers.

Over the city, all the clouds
of unknowing let go the sky, surrender
to this season’s sugared rush.

Time scatters its petals on the street,
over the dark hair of strangers,
into the open hand of a young girl who stands
with her mother under a polka-dot umbrella,

© Carla Funk, April 2007