Street Crossing 

.

.

A woman, bundled tight against the cold,

holds the hands of two children holding hands

with three or four more.

She starts across the street and I watch them

in my rearview mirror:

 the sliding pull of a dark slinky as she moves first,

the children moving into action seconds later. 

And suddenly she is last.

Her brood has sprung forward – hopping, running,

lurching across the trolley tracks.

Their motion catches me – the physicality of swinging movement,

from protected waiting 

to glittering surging flow of Forward;

 anchored by mittened hands.