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Posts Tagged ‘new york city’

Walking Down 37th Ave in Queens

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on November 25, 2025| 8 Comments »


 
 
Sam teaches me how to
not look like a tourist.
Never look up, he says.
Don’t look back or around.
Don’t pause; keep moving.
Even if you don’t know
where you’re going.
This is when I know
two things: One: I love Sam.
How cool he is. The bullet train
efficiency of his attention.
How he loves me enough
to want to help me be cool.
Two: I will never be cool.
I will always be a tourist,
even in my hometown,
will always be spinning
mid-street with wonder,
finding too much delight
in men with green fuzzy pants.
As if such pants are not
a knob for joy. Not to mention
the scent of almond croissants.
Pink shine of neon in a puddle.
Yellow bow on a baby’s
bald head. But for a night,
I follow Sam, “Like this?”
I ask as I don’t pause to fancy
the basket of persimmons.
But I can’t hide the bright flash
of gratefulness that rises for him.
It’s not cool, but I could pause
all night to admire Sam strolling
down 37th, lanky and brave,
his nonchalance integral to
the togetherness of things.

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Poem in Silver Birch Press

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 9, 2022| 4 Comments »

I am grateful to have a poem in Silver Birch Press’s ONE GOOD MEMORY series. When my friend Phyllis first told me about the series, I immediately thought of this memory of my father … place can be so powerful. Thanks to Silver Birch Press for publishing “Walking 5th Avenue”:

Walking 5th Avenue
by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

I am again fifteen
with my father,
my first trip to New York,
and he is not yet
in life-changing pain,
and we stare
in store windows,
eat street pretzels
and look for sales racks.
I don’t know yet
how he will hurt
too much to walk,
how even standing
will become impossible.
No, in this memory
we are walking
and laughing
as if we will forever,
as if there won’t
be a morning
when I wake in New York
almost four decades later
and reach to call him
and thank him
for that long-ago trip,
only to remember
he can no longer
answer the phone.
All day, I hear his laughter
as I walk. All day,
I feel his hand
reaching for mine.

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