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# Schmear
- URL: https://dianaludwick.com/schmear/
- Published: 2026-09-07T14:18:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T20:05:06.000Z
- Description: “Schmear,” about a long walk for a bagel with a mom, a daughter, and free reign of the city, written Monday, September 07, 2026 poem 250 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. Photo: "Bagel, Lox and Schmear, To-Go," by Diana Ludwick © 2026.
- Author: Diana Ludwick
- Tags: 2026 Poetry Challenge, Culinary, Dry Humor, Eating and Drinking, Food Tourism, Generational, Humor, Of Place, Poems, Recipes for Life, travel, Arc'Teryx, Avenue of the Americas, Bagels, Blank Street Coffee, Cartier, Dad, Fifth Avenue, Husband, Labor Day, Late Summer, Lexington, Locals, Madison, Monday, Mother-Daughter dynamics, New York Minute, Newbs, Nike, NYC, Peloton Outdoor, Refuse, Roller bag, Schmear, September, Smoked Salmon, Streets, Summer, The City, Times Square, Tourists, #Migrated-1792872215677, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-10-24 20:03

We’re out on the streets   
before The City wakes.  
She’s a different animal   
before nine in the morning  
on a holiday Monday.  
  
![](https://dianaludwick.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/IMG_7748.png)

  
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)  
  
![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e7/34/e73420f5-4c3f-4a0f-bcb8-0907931c12cf/content/images/2026/10/img_7761.png)

  
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.   
  
![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e7/34/e73420f5-4c3f-4a0f-bcb8-0907931c12cf/content/images/2026/10/img_7779.png)

  
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.