according to the timer that hangs overhead i have twenty-some-odd seconds,
i have a crosswalk stretched out before me,
and what happens between these two sides of the same road,
in the amount of time allotted, is nothing short of miraculous,
according to wikipedia the average speed at which a human walks is about three miles per hour,
according to science it takes jupiter roughly eleven-point-eight earth years to orbit the sun,
thus, according to my own calculations -- i have all the time in the world,

since i just taught my cell phone how to spell starbucks,
i'm feeling the way one feels when one carries a sense of accomplishment,
i'm not sure how to describe it exactly because i've never understood it
when people say they feel like a million bucks,

call me crazy, but i'd rather feel like i have possession of the thing
rather than feeling like the actual thing itself,

and the illuminated stick figure tells me to walk, and so i do,
and i have one of those slow motion moments,
i blink -- in slow motion,
and in slow motion the drawing of the eyelids is a lot like a theatrical reveal,
curtains pulled upward, slowly
an entire audience of anticipation,

and i make eye contact with an oncoming pedestrian
and we cross walk
and i can tell he has no idea that his eyes say more than his appearance,
about where he's been and what he's carryin' -- metaphorically,
and i can tell, he thinks i think something about myself,
like once i reach the age of this pea coat
and i'm weathered like a laundry list of old buttons
hanging on by a thread that's been threaded real good by a pair of blue collar hands,
like once i reach that age i'll hip-pocket my experience
and play the "been there" card more often than the sun sets,

i can tell in this pedestrian moment behind this exchange between pedestrian eyes,
that one of us thinks that the other looks down on himself
and i do, look down on myself, for the brevity of a moment,
just to be sure my shirt is buttoned,
to check and see that my fly is up,
to be sure there are no lingering crumbs on my shirt
from that cinnamon swirl coffee cake i consumed in a hurry,

and sure enough -- i'm good,
and by the time i'm done looking down on myself, he's gone
and our ped x-ing moment is gone
and any chance we had at knowing the truth is gone
and as i look back over my shoulder i catch a glimpse of a red hand flashing,

and he will never know how once i reach the age of this coat
i will carry nothing but the weight of a word on my shoulder,
because there is nothing we do that comes with us when we die
because everything we have will be left behind,

he'll never know that i'm not entirely sure that either of us has taken a path less traveled,
he'll never know that i borrowed this coat from my father who wore it with more pride then i'll ever own,
and he'll never know that somewhere in that slow motion crosswalk, i fell in love,

but i'll tell you what he does know--
he knows that the freeway isn't,
that the sidewalk can't,
that the drawbridge is up in arms,
and that the crosswalk used to be a safe haven for pedestrians,
he knows what it is to walk in the opposite direction,
how it feels to move against the flow of traffic,
he knows how to look directly into a flashing red hand and say
"i'm not there yet"
"i'm on my way"
"give me a second"

and that's a life lesson, that's enlightenment,
what happens between these two sides of the same road
is an obedient display of willingness to obey,

how this cross walk is a multi-layered metaphor,
how we're born,
how we travel,
how the goal is to cross over to the other side,
how somewhere in the middle we get distracted,
we have a fleeting sequence of moments,
how some of us fall in love,
how some of us stay in between the lines,
how some of us never make it in time
and then it ends

how he does not know that i will go home and write a poem called i've just been cross-walked
or the deceptively long journey from beginning to end
or life in twenty seconds or less

how i will go home and write a poem called pedestrian
and how i will write it from his perspective, not mine.

03/10/2009

Author's Note: i wish to point out that jaywalking is illegal in parts of california and as much as i think this is a dumb law, i also do not condone talking back to the flashing red hand. be patient and wait your turn, the automobiles have somewhere to be. (( hear it. ))

Posted on 03/10/2009
Copyright © 2025 Frankie Sanchez