My Mother's God Willing

I shouldn’t have said that thing about priests diddling children in front of my mom 

I think I’m just jealous that she has a higher power at whose feet she can lay her most insurmountable problems 

We have a cricket living in the basement and he talks to the crickets who live outside and I feel bad that he’s somehow gotten separated

You don’t really hear crickets in New York

Sometimes a feral cat or neglected dog howling in the air shaft

I did see a squirrel recently fall out of a tree on Fifth Avenue by the park 

He looked hurt, definitely shellshocked 

I had just gotten out of the doctor and I too was hurt, definitely shellshocked

I choked down a sandwich on a bench with the names of a genial sounding dead couple engraved on it and told my mom I had a good run 

Elsewhere in Central Park, I imagined, an unknowable amount of people were having this exact same conversation

I’m not worried about New York, I’m worried about myself 

But maybe later, God willing, we could convalesce together

(I should clarify and say “my mother’s God willing”)