What Used To be In New York City
The winter is darkly sad here:
the roads are closed for snow,
the subway is not running.
I can not go to Broadway
because the Plays are suspended
and the Long Island Railroad
is hiding.
I remember there used to be a snowball,
the play used to go on
and there was flaky suspension.
They can’t even scrape the rails:
used to be that a scrape
and a scab was nothing.
Everyone sang in the snow
hitched a ride on paradise.
I miss the day when
I got lost in the snow
and somebody’s dog
licked my face.
— Douglas Gilbert
