Schmear

We’re out on the streets 
before The City wakes.
She’s a different animal 
before nine in the morning
on a holiday Monday.



With the pavement to ourselves
We power walk at our own pace
Unencumbered by roller bag-dragging newbs
with slack mouths and bobble heads, 
visually ingesting the skyscraper surrounds 
like the hatchling-fresh, hungry babes they are.

Please. 
Save us from the tourists;
After four days, 
we’re clearly NYC locals now.

We set our course for a bagel shop 
twenty blocks across town.
We trek through Times Square 
and Fifth Avenue, past Arc’Teryx 
and Cartier.

She won’t hold my hand, 
but her cadence matches mine.
It’s as close as I’ll get to 
an acknowledgment of kinship, 
perhaps.
It’s enough, for now.

Our white Nike trainers strike 
loose, shed pigeon feathers 
and we dodge blue refuse bags 
slammed to the curb by weary first shift workers
as if four tandem rowers 
deftly clearing boulders in the river.
We ford The Avenue of the Americas.
Undaunted, we pass Madison 
and clear Lexington.

I regret not grabbing a to-go drip coffee from the lobby; 
I urge her to slow; we pop into Blank Street Coffee.
“My friends from camp say this is the best café!” 
She beams.
She orders a "cinnamon bun latte on ice"; 
(hold the "thanks!")
I ask for a "Daydream with whole milk, large, please."
(Tip alone costs more than a McCafé latte)



We resume our stroll 
(I reactivate my Peloton Outdoor Walk tracker)
We meet up with her Dad, my husband,
And he holds the bagelry front door open for us.

We walk in and now we’re the ones 
with sesame bagel-sized irises, 
agog at the plethora of choices 
deficient in glutens.
“I don’t know what to get!” 
Our daughter cries in earnest angst.
The city native behind us sizes us up 
and sighs.
We won’t be a swift order. 
How fast the bagel rolls.

He gets an avo with egg on everything;
She decides on a toasted carrot cake bagel "with plain."
I go for broke with the: 
"Rivington on everything, sub chive in lieu of regular."

We collect our warm treasures 
and cross another street 
to sit on a granite ledge in the sun. 



Pigeons whoosh about us 
as we each take the perfect bite.
In a New York Minute we’re transported
to a place where nostalgia and our future 
meld together like schmear on a hot bagel.