Suicide Lane by Mather Schneider

Yesterday I was walking down the sidewalk
and at the corner of Dodge and Grant
there was this young blind girl,
one arm full of books,
the other holding the leash
of a seeing-eye dog.
They were walking slowly toward me.
Grant road was busy as hell
stinking and crying with rush hour.
The horns blared in the no-man’s land
of the only suicide-lane left in the city.
The seeing-eye dog didn’t know
what the hell was going on,
it must have been his first day on the job
because he was darting all over the
place, and the girl kept yanking
the leash and cursing.
When we came closer to each other
the dog veered at me
across her path
with his tongue hanging out and a big dumb
smile on his face.
“God DAMMIT!” the girl cursed,
“HEEL! ”
The dog didn’t seem to mind
being choked back
because in the next instant he was focused
on the redolent and wild joy
of a hamburger napkin
blowing feral in the cars’ crosswinds.


Mather Schneider, Arizona, USA