On the Way to JFK
The great ones regard every moment like this…
– Ellen Bass
The Belt Parkway is jammed. The cabbie and I chat.
He’s from Spain, lives in Jersey, married 40 years.
I lived in Jersey before California, 50 years ago.
We talk about the weather— spring with cold wind,
grandkids, spitting rain, the Jersey towns we know.
We talk about traffic as we cross the Verrazano bridge.
He says, I enjoy every day now. Sometimes it takes
two hours from Newark to the City, the tunnels
slow, the weather bad. I just enjoy every ride.
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Tere Sievers was born and raised on the Jersey Shore. After college, she joined Vista and volunteered for a year in Atlanta, Georgia, then married and moved to Long Beach, California. A retired Marriage and Family Therapist, she teaches Seniors in the OLLI program at CSULB. Her poems have appeared in: A Year of Being Here, Nerve Cowboy, PEARL and Staple, as well as Picture Show Press and Silver Birch Press anthologies. Her chapbook, Striking Distance is published by Arroyo Seco Press.