There is this feeling – perhaps it is regret –

when I find old transit cards

and other relics of my former urban self

here and there, tucked away

 

like the old metal folding cart I used

to lug groceries to my apartment

now languishing in the garage;

each square of its grid, a spider sanctuary

 

I used to walk everywhere

Now I don’t walk anywhere, anymore

I even drive to the gym

Sometimes, I stop on the way home to shop

at the world’s cleanest, and safest Safeway

 

My old Safeway was less safe

The parking lot was a layer

of losing lottery scratchers

held together by Olde English & hot tar

 

It happens to everyone they say…

this passageway to oblivion,

this slow obsolescence,

this mellowing

 

You get a dishwasher and a lawn service

You get squirrels and turkeys

You get nice neighbors

You get trick or treaters

You give away all the candy and

You still get fat

You get kisses

You give up on sex

There are side effects…

even, and especially, of comfort
But it happens to everyone, they say

 

I don’t walk anywhere, anymore

But I think about walking away

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Glenda Green was born & raised in Kansas. She currently lives in California with her husband, Jason. If you Google her name, a religious painting lady comes up – but that isn’t her. She used to use a pen name, but she doesn’t do that anymore as she hopes to eventually take back her name from the painting lady. She was recently a laureate’s choice winner in the 2016 Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest. She graduated from SFSU in 2011 and currently works as a video-editor.  In her free-time she writes, collects rocks, gardens, and looks at the stars.