In Spring

A lazy afternoon under quixotic skies.  At times the sky turned black & threatened downpours, but it always chickened out & let the sun back in.  The light was beautiful, and it barely rained at all.  I wandered at leisure.  Ordered a book at Bluestockings, bought tickets for a Wiseman film (High School) at the Metrograph next week (Jesus, those tickets aren't cheap).  On Ludlow an Asian cross-dresser clad entirely in pink tottered on heels ahead of me.  Muscular calves & a satin swing coat that dipped over one bare shoulder.  Men swiveled their heads.  I dallied in Chinatown & then headed back to the Essex Street Market.  I sat there for a while reading, over Porto Rico coffee and a sweet cannelle.  I always love the Market; it reminds me of the indoor markets I grew up with, those commonplace centers of any English town.  Just why does it have to move? Bought mangoes & papaya there & made my way slowly to Second Avenue. On the way, parents were out, shepherding their children home from after-school. The smallest of the children all wore green paper shamrock crowns.  A boy on a bicycle wobbled down the sidewalk with his arm draped around his mother, leaning towards her for support.  She held him up.
Wandered down the old block & looked up at the windows of the first apartment.  They looked no different from the way they did back then.  As is always the case at these times, I was shot with a moment of jealousy.