Ode To My Mustard-Stained Hands

By John Grey

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The down-city park

is ripe for strolling.

On a hot cloudless day,

the scenery is as expected:

bare-chested pretty boys

laze on concrete,

women tan their legs,

and some guy

with his hat low

to hide half his face,

hawks knock-off handbags.

The fountain gushes

while locals bathe

in its gentler reaches of its spray.

My eye’s a camera, Fellini’s maybe,

scouting for a scene:

a chorus line of Puerto Rican dancers,

an artist who draws in chalk on pavement,

peeling hip-hop posters,

and a tribe of young girls

who bounce to a boombox beat.

On a makeshift podium,

a white-bearded antique

lectures on Marx and Engels

to an audience of no one.

I grab a hotdog.

Mustard bleeds down my knuckles.

Sun glints off the chrome of a stroller wheel –

a child asleep, mouth open to the breeze.

It’s a moment to add

to all my other moments:

a pigeon’s wing catching light,

the hiss of a bus pulling away,

a mustard-stained hand

to add to all my other

mustard-stained hands.