(Christmas Day/2003, after seeing The Triplets of Belleville)

Fueled by panettone, high on French cartoon grandma energy

we bend low into the wind and head home

to more cheese, bread and doggy kisses....

and find ourselves passing a wheelchair

bound by massive chains to a playground fence.

The mind reels. Gangland victm? S & M routine?

All over Manhattan are bicycles so chained, to fences, poles, tree guards-

but a wheelchair? Abandoned? With such a chain?

No, awaiting someone’s return, for sure.

Will he/she walk to it? Resume a panhandling scam?

Cut the chains and pawn it?

By now we are past the vacant lots, passing Starbucks, The Gap,

the known civilized world collapsing on us like slush around a wet boot.

We drown in dreams of pending comfort. We inhale familar safety.

We reject the cold chain-linked world.

We hurry home

to more blueberry tea cake

to Charlie Rose

and those custom-shirted experts telling us how safe we are

how safe we think we are.